Formula 1: Ferrari ‘forgot’ to inform Charles Leclerc of Sebastian Vettel’s penalty

Ferrari “simply forgot” to inform Charles Leclerc of the penalty that cost teammate Sebastian Vettel his first victory of the 2019 Formula 1 season.

Race stewards’ poor decisions aside, it simply wouldn’t be a Formula 1 race anymore without some kind of internal issue at Scuderia Ferrari that hinders the results of one or both of their drivers.

Such was the case in the 2019 season’s seventh race, the Canadian Grand Prix, after Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was issued a five-second time penalty for an unsafe reentry onto the 14-turn, 2.71-mile (4.361-kilometer) Circuit Gilles Villeneuve road course on Parc Jean-Drapeau in Montreal, Quebec, Canada after going off the track between turns three and four on the 70-lap race’s 48th lap.

With Vettel leading the race by less than five seconds over Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Lewis Hamilton, who had to brake to avoid hitting Vettel once the 31-year-old German came back onto the racing surface following his short off-track excursion, by the time the two drivers crossed the finish line 22 laps later, Hamilton was declared the winner.

More from Formula One

• Formula 1: Top Red Bull threat identified for 2024
• Formula 1: Why the Max Verstappen retirement obsession?
• Formula 1: Williams ‘mistake’ hints Logan Sargeant’s future
• Formula 1 awaiting key confirmation for 2024 season
• Formula 1: The ‘championship’ Max Verstappen only leads by 3 points

Vettel led Hamilton by 1.342 seconds at the finish line and was still officially scored in second place behind him by 3.658 seconds. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc finished in third, just 4.696 seconds behind Hamilton. As a result, he finished 6.038 seconds behind Vettel but was officially scored only 1.038 seconds behind him.

However, Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto stated that the team “simply forgot” to inform the 21-year-old Monegasque that his teammate had been issued this penalty, which could have prompted him to push harder for what would have been a career-high second place finish. Here is what Binotto had to say about the matter, according to Motorsport.

"“We didn’t [tell him]. It has been a mistake from our side. We were very busy on the pitwall and simply we forgot. We should have done it, but we didn’t.”"

Leclerc, however, does not believe that Ferrari’s lack of relaying this information to him cost him a second place finish. Here is what he had to say about the matter, according to Motorsport.

"“No. Because anyway I was pushing very hard to try to catch up. I saw they were fighting and I saw they were close at least, and I saw also that we were quite quick and catching up. I was pushing hard so that if anything happened I had the opportunity to be as close as possible to do so. So no, it would not have changed my approach.”"

Did Ferrari “simply forgetting” to tell Charles Leclerc that Sebastian Vettel had been issued a five-second time penalty cost him what would have been his career-high Formula 1 finish of second place, or would he have finished in third even if he had been informed about it?