Yesterday at 09:15
Charles Leclerc retired from the Dutch Grand Prix after being
tagged by Kimi Antonelli, instantly puncturing his rear left tyre
and sending him careering helplessly into the barriers. The
incident occured on lap 53 of the 72-lap race at Zandvoort, robbing
him of what would likely have been a fourth-place finish and
consigning Ferrari to a pointless afternoon following Lewis
Hamilton's - unprovoked - crash at the same corner (Turn 3) earlier
on. A crestfallen Leclerc could not, however, face returning to the
paddock immediately, where he would have had to face the cameras
and microphones of the media. Instead, he sat atop the sand dune
on the inside of Turn 3, watching the rest of the race and
seemingly ruing his bad luck - and contemplating life more
generally. However, the Monegasque driver was unable to bear his
misfortune alone. Instead, an impromptu photo shoot took place once
he had been discovered by F1's TV cameras. And, as a consequence,
eagle-eyed viewers noticed the eight-time grand prix winner using a
mobile phone, which, understandably, generated considerable
intrigue as to how he got hold of one so quickly - and so far from
the paddock. It was evident it was not the 27-year-old's own
device, as that is not permitted by the FIA. Plus, why would a
driver want the extra weight in the car? So, when Hadjarfanaat445
asked RacingNews365 how Leclerc got hold of a phone so quickly for
our weekly fan questions video , we investigated, with Ian Parkes
explaining what had transpired. "Charles, obviously, in a difficult
part of the track to try and get back to the paddock, we saw him
almost deck chair-like Fernando Alonso from a few years back, when
old Fernando crashed out and he was sat in that deck chair, there
was Charles sitting on top of that sand bank," he said. "And yeah,
we saw him with a mobile phone. It was like, Where has he got this
from? Surely he hasn't got a mobile phone in his race suit, or,
quite naturally, there's not going to be a mobile phone in his
car." "So I contacted Ferrari on the back of this question, funnily
enough, because I myself wanted to know - it was a good question.
"And quite simply, Charles knew a photographer who was stationed at
that particular part of the circuit, and actually a great part of
the circuit to get action shots, and I'm sure that photographer was
a very busy boy that day, bearing in mind what happened with Lewis
and Charles at that particular point. "So, Charles knew the
photographer. He asked if he could borrow the mobile phone from
this photographer, and the photographer, of course, did him a
favour, gave Charles the mobile phone, and that's why we saw those
great shots on his mobile sitting on a sand bank, watching the rest
of the race unfold."
