Leclerc wasn't informed of Vettel penalty by Ferrari
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Ferrari did not tell Charles Leclerc that teammate Sebastian Vettel had received a time penalty during Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix, with the Monegasque driver finishing one second shy of a P2 finish.Vettel was hit with a five-second time penalty for unsafely rejoining the track while leading in a move that forced Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton to take evasive action behind.Vettel managed to hold on to the lead on-track and cross the line first, but Hamilton was declared the winner after finishing 1.342s behind the Ferrari driver, giving him a margin of victory of 3.658s once the penalty was applied.Running third, Leclerc looked to be in contention of finishing within five seconds of Vettel at the front in the closing stages, but was one second short of his teammate in the final classification.However, Leclerc revealed after the race that he was not told Vettel had a penalty.”I didn’t know anything about it,” Leclerc told media including after Sunday’s race.”The team didn’t let me know that Seb had a five-second penalty, so I was just trying to push to try and catch Lewis up, but I didn’t know about the penalty.”Asked for his opinion on Ferrari’s decision not to tell him, Leclerc said: “I don’t know. In the end I was doing my own race, but I wasn’t aware.”Leclerc was unable to contend with either Vettel or Hamilton at the front of the pack after being kept out for a long first stint, leaving him a long way off the leading pair after pitting, having lost time to both drivers following their earlier stops.”I think it’s a bit of a shame, because I think we have been very quick today. From Lap 1 to the last lap, every lap we were very competitive,” Leclerc said.”In the first few laps we’ve been very competitive. Then we picked up the pace and then from then on, we were very quick.”A bit of a shame we lost quite a lot pitting later, but it’s part of the game. We’ll see the next races.”Additional reporting by Julianne Cerasoli.
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