Much has been written about Formula One Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc and his apparent jinx when racing around the streets of his home town. Ferrari’s number one has never completed a race in any class of racing in the Principality, including two weeks ago at the Historic racing event when he drove Niki Lauda’s 1977 Ferrari into the Rascasse barrier.
At this years F1 Monaco GP weekend, LeClerc has been around the top of the time sheets for each of the four sessions, culminating with him putting together a stunning lap to claim pole position.
Yet the sword of Damocles once again hovered over the Monegasque driver’s head as he failed to see a pit lane light during qualifying. The light was to call Charles into the weighbridge for a random legality check by the FIA delegates, but he drove on by.
Ferrari quickly spotted his mistake and told him to stop, sending their mechanics to push him back to have the car checked it was legal.
Yet Helmut Marko believes this was still in breach of the rules and having noted the incident the stewards “should apply a penalty”.
However, Article 35.1 b) of the FIA’s sporting regulations states: “Any driver who fails to stop when asked to do so, and then fails to bring the car back to the FIA garage, or if work is carried out on the car before it is returned to the FIA garage, will be referred to the stewards.”
Given the letter of the law it would appear Marko is wrong because the Ferrari mechanics returned the car to the weighbridge with no “work carried out on the car.”
Despite this Helmut Marko insisted, “He drove by. They didn’t change the car, but according to the regulations, it should be a penalty.”
Marko bizarrely added “I don’t think we need to intervene,” with the strange rationale “I don’t wish it on him because he’s had so much bad luck in Monte Carlo.”
Have Red Bull gone soft?
READ MORE: Red Bull engine penalty looms in Monaco
Surely staying a complaint about the breach of rules by Max Verstappen’s direct competitor for the championship because they ‘feel sorry for him’ is not really in Red Bull Racing’s DNA.
It simply shows the goodwill of RB towards Leclerc and Ferrari. All fights between Max and Leclerc have been fair ones on the track. RB have not been provoked by Leclerc or Binotto like the MB twain did, with their manipulation of the officials, politics playing in a compliant press and the unnecessary needling of their adversaries. Marko showed that he is a big man. May this healthy trend between RB and Ferrari continue all year.
Why don’t those two planks at red bull ( IE ) Horner & Marko stop bitching & get on with racing.
You both winch so much
What goodwill? He went complaining to get him disqualified from pole position all because max was not good enough this weekend in qualifications. There is no goodwill towards anyone from RB. Helmut showed how nasty he is to all drivers and especially Hamilton, wonder why? And Horner even stated in Netflix that MB always are looking at them and must be copying their tactics. He must know that are looking because he is always looking to notice this. And MB 8 constructors championships in a row would hardly need to copy anything RB are doing as they are not as successful. Toto called RB out all the time and haters if Hamilton and MB don’t see it that way. The rest who watch all see how terrible those 2 are. As a British man am ashamed if Horner been British. As Richard states that are 2 planks and this will roll onto the team. Poor Perez a decent man having to put up with those people and been lied to about track position been given back.