Charles Leclerc delivered an expletive-filled tirade on team radio after the Las Vegas Grand Prix as he felt he had too much respect for teammate Carlos Sainz for ultimately missing out on a podium finish.

Sainz drove ahead of Leclerc ahead of the second round of pit stops, but was then forced to give up a position to his teammate, before using an undercut to pass the Monegasque driver again. Leclerc was told that Sainz had been told not to overtake him as he emerged from the pits, but was passed two corners later. When asked to pick up rubber after the race and congratulated for doing his job after the race, Leclerc was clearly angry.

“Yes, whatever you want, as always,” said Leclerc in response to race engineer Bryan Bozzi. “Yes, I did my job, but being nice f***s me all the time, all the time. It’s not even being nice, it’s just being respectful. I know I should keep my mouth shut, but at some point it’s always the same. Oh my fucking God.”

When Leclerc was then reminded to pick up rubber again, he replied: “Yes, yes, pick up whatever you want.

“S**t, s**t, s**t, and the radio is on – I’m sorry, that was on me.”

Sainz explains the situation for his part and believes that Ferrari handled the second pit stop phase poorly, losing a lot of time when he was ahead of Leclerc.

“I think he sanded the medium tires well and I managed to get ahead on mediums before the pit stop,” said Sainz. “Then I gave it my best shot and he quickly came after me, and I anticipated what was going to be a situation, because Lewis was right behind Charles at the time, and I was pretty sure the team was going to ask me to leave Charles passed because he was faster at that moment.

“Because I was on gritty tires, I asked the team two or three times to box me, get me out of the way and buy a new set of hards to make sure I didn’t lose much race time. by having to pass Charles and fight Lewis at the same time.

“For some reason we didn’t box and I ended up having to let Charles come in a lap later than planned, which meant I lost a lot of race time. And by the time I started boxing, we weren’t even boxing anymore.

“So I think he’s not happy, but I’m also not happy with the way things were handled at the time. I don’t think anyone in the team is happy today because we all expected a little more. I’m on the podium, so at least I have that for the team. But at the same time, I don’t think we could have finished much better today than P3 and P4.”