Kimi Antonelli took Charles Leclerc out of the Dutch Grand Prix when he got an attempted overtake on the Ferrari all wrong during the latter stages of the Zandvoort race
It really was not Ferrari’s day at Zandvoort. First, Lewis Hamilton lost control on a wet and slippery bit of paint and became the first to retire from the Dutch Grand Prix, before team-mate Charles Leclerc also endured an early end to his race.
The Monegasque’s DNF was certainly no fault of his own. He was the unfortunate victim of an overly-ambitious move from Kimi Antonelli who attempted an overtake that was never on and he ended up punting the Ferrari into the barrier and out of the race.
Leclerc’s disappointment was obvious as he reported what had happened over the radio, and in his body language after climbing out of his car. He removed his helmet and sat in one of the marshals’ fold-out chairs as he processed what had happened to him.
And, instead of trudging back to the paddock, he decided to use the opportunity to take in some of the action from the fans’ perspective. Leclerc found a sand dune to perch himself on and watched on, still wearing his red Ferrari race overalls, as the race resumed without him.
There were plenty of photographers around to get snaps of the racer pondering his predicament. And as those images filtered onto social media, fans were quick to draw comparisons to popular memes and find the funny side.
One wrote: « Bro is doing a photoshoot there! » A second said: « Only a Ferrari driver could aura farm a DNF this hard. » And a third added: « At least two of these can be used for any of his upcoming influencer shots. »
Leclerc did eventually make it back to the paddock where he needed to fulfil his media duties before heading to see the stewards, accused of having illegally overtaken George Russell earlier in the race. And while his frustration was evident, he was keen not to be too hard on rookie Antonelli.
He said: « Kimi’s incident is the way it is. I think mistakes happen on a track like this, you’ve got to be incisive and aggressive to make a pass, and that’s what I’ve done as well against George. That’s what Kimi tried to do on myself, but I think he probably misjudged it and kind of ruined my race. It’s a shame, but it’s the way it is.
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Leclerc had pitted shortly before that crash as Ferrari reacted to Mercedes bringing Antonelli in for fresh tyres. And he made it clear over the radio after the incident that he did not think it was necessary to have stopped, but resisted the opportunity to criticise the team for having put him into that battle which ended in tears.
He added: « I guess the team had a different opinion with all the data they had available and they thought that this was the right choice, which maybe it was. But, obviously, that puts us into a situation of quite a bit of stress. But apart from that, I don’t think it was a mistake either way. »
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