F1 pundit alarmed by Ferrari’s ‘odd’ radio messages to Charles Leclerc in Canada

F1 analyst Peter Windsor was alarmed by Ferrari’s team radio messages to Charles Leclerc during the Canadian Grand Prix, claiming they could hint at issues behind the scenes.

Ferrari enjoyed arguably their strongest showing of the 2023 season in Montreal, but their podium prospects faded after a disastrous qualifying session in wet conditions.

Leclerc could only qualify 11th after a tyre misjudgement in Q2, while team-mate Carlos Sainz incurred a three-place grid penalty for impeding Alpine driver Pierre Gasly in Q1.

Leclerc and Sainz both mounted a strong recovery on race day to finish fourth and fifth respectively, having decided against pitting during the Safety Car intervention for George Russell’s crash.

However, former Williams and Ferrari team manager Windsor was left stunned by a radio message to Leclerc on Lap 25 when the Monegasque was told by his race engineer: “We want a clean and fast stint, Sainz will not attack you.”

Speaking via his YouTube channel after the race, Windsor feels Ferrari’s messaging to Leclerc may point to a strange dynamic between team and driver.

He said: “There were – I don’t know if I should read too much into this – some very odd radio messages to Charles, I thought.

“A lot of it was: ‘Don’t worry, Carlos is not racing you, he’s not going to challenge you’ – as if a guy of Charles’ stature needs to be told that.

“But I guess if they said that to him twice, it must be a talking point in the debriefs in the garage at some point.

“And secondly, it was like: ‘What we want from you now, Charles, because we’ve told Carlos not to race you, we want a nice, clean, fast stint.’

“I mean, you’re saying that to Charles Leclerc. Does [the team] think he’s never going to drive as fast and as cleanly as he can? Or, indeed, if he’s going to make a mistake, he’s not going to make a mistake [now] because they’ve told him to drive cleanly.

PlanetF1.com recommends

Canadian Grand Prix team ratings: Shock top scorers and a rare Red Bull mistake

‘Logical’ team swap identified for Charles Leclerc amidst Ferrari future talk

“It’s a bit juvenile, I thought, I just couldn’t believe that they were talking to him like that.

“But anyway, he did the job in the end and maybe that’s what he needs. Maybe he has to be spoken to like a schoolteacher to the pupil. It seemed very odd to me, that whole radio interaction with him.”

After coming in for heavy criticism post-qualifying, Ferrari received plaudits for keeping Leclerc and Sainz out during the Safety Car with both drivers getting through the race on one stop as others were forced into two.

Yet after Leclerc’s long-run pace in Friday practice matched up well to eventual race winner Max Verstappen, so much so that Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko was concerned by it, Windsor reckons Ferrari will reflect on Canada as a missed opportunity.

He explained: “Full marks – today – for their strategy. They did a really good job.

“They did a good job because they didn’t come in at the first Safety Car when everybody else did and went from medium to hard.

“They stayed out there to get track position, because they were ninth and 10th on the grid, and they used that really, really well and they ran those mediums right up to the point where all the guys on hards were saying, ‘We’ve lost grip, we’d better come in again’, and at that point they came in as well.

“So they actually did really well with their strategy, they predicted that the medium tyre would last right up until half distance and both Charles and Carlos Sainz made the most of it.

“They finished fourth and fifth and good luck to them, that was a good performance from where they were on the grid but a disappointing weekend in general because right up until qualifying Charles Leclerc had been not far away from Max Verstappen.

“And I think had he qualified where he should have qualified, he would have been second and he probably would have beaten Fernando Alonso.

“It would have been a really interesting to race to see how the Ferrari compared with the Aston Martin given how well the Ferraris went on the medium tyre.

“I think it would have been really, really close.”