At the start of the Mexico City Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc moved up from third to challenge his teammate Lewis Hamilton for the lead. And as has often been the case between the two Ferrari drivers this year, the battle could’ve gone cleaner.
Charles Leclerc took the lead by leaving the track in turn four, pushing Hamilton off his line and sending the pole-sitter tumbling back to third, with Max Verstappen taking advantage.
Quickly, Leclerc pulled out to a one-second lead over Verstappen. Leclerc had until turn 12 to give back the position, but with Verstappen down, he would drop from the lead to third.
Leclerc stayed in the lead, and his pass was investigated; recently, the FIA has had a stern talk with drivers and said that nearly every advantage gained by leaving the track that the driver did not reverse in time would result in a ten-second penalty.
Leclerc received a 5-second penalty, which was relayed over the radio to the drivers once he was 3.6 seconds clear of Verstappen and 5.1 seconds clear of his teammate Hamilton.
The mitigating circumstances for the league minimum of 5 seconds seem to be the nature of the opening turns at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
“Ha, I thought all the new penalties were a ten?” Verstappen replied over the radio to the news.
By lap 18, Leclerc had moved to second, 5.1 seconds behind Verstappen.
Victoria Beaver is a nomadic sports writer who spends her time hopping between race tracks and hippie farms. She’s covered every corner of motorsports that will let her in from 410 Sprints to NASCAR to Supercross. Her daily driver is a 2010 Subaru that she refused to do the smallest amount of preventative maintenance on. Instead, she spends her free time and money building a 42-foot Skoolie to one day travel the country full time.
