Charles Leclerc was given a strict warning from the Ferrari pit wall after he made a joke about engine issues during the last lap of the 2022 Bahrain GP.
Charles Leclerc cruised to victory in the opening race of the 2022 F1 season in Bahrain. Along with teammate Carlos Sainz, the Ferrari duo sealed a 1-2 finish giving the team a great start to the season.
This was an emotional moment for the Italian team. It was Ferrari’s first win and 1–2 finish since the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix ending their 45-race wait for a race victory.
But the celebrations at the Ferrari garage were almost cut during the dying minutes of the race. And this was due to a dirty prank that race winner Leclerc played on the radio.
Charles was comfortably leading the race. In the last lap of the race, he communicated on his radio, “Somethings strange with the engine.” And his race engineer replied to him back with a heavy sigh.
The entire garage gasped that he’d suffered a mechanical fault and wouldn’t make the finish line.
Leclerc later revealed he was messing with them.
And immediately he was ordered in Italian, “Never make this kind of joke again,” by team Principal Mattia Binotto. To which Leclerc apologised as he claimed the chequered flag.
The Monagesque told after the race, “I did a bit of a joke on team radio on the last lap to say there was something strange with the engine. I’m pretty sure the engineers didn’t like that.”
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Charles Leclerc is keen on turning the season around
After 2 difficult years, Charles Leclerc has finally given Ferrari a fighting chance. The Italian team that used to content for championships had fallen into a slump recently.
The team last contended for the championship in 2018 when Sebastian Vettel came close to dethroning Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes’s domination. But from 2019 to 2021 Ferrari had a tumultuous few years.
With Leclerc winning the season opener, the ‘Tifosi’ have their hopes high again. But the Monegasque and the team have fallen short to Red Bull and Max Verstappen in the 2022 season battle.
Leclerc believes the team must learn from its mistakes and can still turn the season around if it wished to. But the road to championship wins is a long way ahead.
Leclerc replied: “As a team, looking at where we are coming from in the last two years, I do believe it’s an incredible step forward. There is another step we need to do. And we are working on that but I’m confident that we will do it.”
Realistically, Ferrari have lost the 2022 title to Red Bull after a 96-point deficit ahead of the summer break. But the team can learn and improve to challenge again the next year.
