Sainz dismisses talk of Leclerc fall-out

Carlos Sainz believes outsiders are not differentiating between his working relationship with Charles Leclerc and his personal one following comments the latter made at last week’s Las Vegas Grand Prix. Leclerc was outspoken on team radio about Sainz overtaking him after the final round of pit stops after having been told his teammate had been instructed not to put him under pressure. Sainz said such situations are normal for the pair, as their in-the-moment reactions come before they have a full understanding of the situation, and that the pair arrived in Qatar having already put the incident behind them. “It always happens with us,” Sainz said. “We go through some misunderstandings that in the heat of the moment (that) we obviously are quite vocal about and we feel very frustrated about. After a couple of days have gone by and you can see everything with a bit more perspective and give yourself a bit of time to analyze things, you realize that when you talk through things you can actually understand them and put them behind (you). “That’s the exercise that we’ve been having to do for four years because we’re always sharing the same piece of tarmac and we’re always fighting each other on track because we’re driving the same car and we are equally on pace, and we’ve gone through this so often that we know how to talk and then move on from it.” Sainz says outsiders should not judge their relationship from afar, insisting what happens on track has little impact on how well they get on with each other. “I honestly keep seeing sometimes in social media that people believe it’s not true and it’s all PR, and honestly it disappoints me because people cannot sometimes understand that we have a professional relationship, and in that professional relationship we go through ups and downs and, as competitive as we are, there’re always going to have some issues on track,” he said. “Because, again, if he would be P1 and I would be P8 or vice versa we would never have issues, but unfortunately, or let’s say fortunately for the team, we’re always in the same point on the track and we’re having our little issues here and there. “But then we also have a personal relationship and as much as the professional one goes through ups and downs, the personal one, I can tell you, it’s always been really, really good. He’s one of those guys that I know that in the future when I’m not in Formula 1, I’ll look back and say I’m glad I met him and I’m glad I raced with him and I’m glad I can have a lot of good memories with him. “In these four years in Ferrari I’ve enjoyed every single moment with him, even the tough ones, as much as they’ve been tough, I’m pretty sure in 20-30 years I’ll laugh about them and look back with being proud of what we’ve achieved together.”