Antonelli as much to blame as Piastri for first corner incident - Leclerc

Charles Leclerc says Kimi Antonelli should have shared equal blame for the initial contact with Oscar Piastri that took the Ferrari driver out of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

Piastri tried to overtake Antonelli down the inside of Turn 1 after a safety car restart, with Leclerc on the outside in a three-wide moment as the trio fought over second place. Leclerc stayed wide but Antonelli and Piastri came together on the entry into the corner, with the stewards giving Piastri a 10-second time penalty and deciding the Australian was “wholly responsible” for the incident.

“I watched it from afar, from where I was sat in the grass looking at the big screen,” Leclerc said. “It's a shame. Collateral damage of an incident between Oscar and Kimi, where in my opinion actually Kimi was as much to blame as Oscar.

“For me it's a bit of a 50-50 incident, Oscar being optimistic, Kimi doing the corner like Oscar was never there. And that means they collided and touched me. Very frustrating considering we are fighting for the second place in the constructors’ championship and we are the only ones that are not finishing the race. So it's going to be very difficult to get that second now.”

With Lewis Hamilton also retiring from the race at Interlagos due to crash damage sustained in two separate incidents, Ferrari is now fourth in the constructors’ championship, 36 points behind Mercedes in second.

“It's a tough weekend, at least a tough Sunday,” team principal Fred Vasseur said. “I had the feeling that with Charles we were in a good place. He had a good start, a good restart, he took margin on the [outside] curb and we are paying the full price of the crash between Antonelli and Piastri.

“I don't care about who is at fault between Piastri and Antonelli, but for sure it was not Charles! And it's tough because in this fight you can't give up points. When you are giving up points, you are giving points also to the others. It's the double penalty and in our case it's very harsh.”