Ferrari has been fined for Charles Leclerc’s pitlane collision with Lando Norris in Friday practice at the Singapore Grand Prix.
An increased €10,000 fine has been handed down by the stewards after Ferrari was deemed guilty of unsafely releasing Leclerc into Norris’s path in the final quarter of FP2 as the session was about to resume following a red flag.
The two teams are next to each other in the pits with McLaren, last year’s constructors’ champion, having the first garages after the pitlane entry.
Norris was already pulling out into the fast lane when Leclerc started to leave his garage.
And Leclerc seemed oblivious to the McLaren’s presence as he entered the fast lane himself just as Norris was driving past.
The two cars made contact and Norris even bumped into the pitwall, breaking his car’s front wing.
The stewards ruled that it was “overlooked” that Norris was already passing in the fast lane and Leclerc was given “unclear instructions” as he could not see Norris’s car.
They found it warranted a “more severe penalty” than normal incidents like this in practice, hence fining Ferrari €10,000 instead of €5,000, but stopped short of applying a sporting penalty.
"I think it was a bit of confusion with the two McLarens going out, and it looked like they were going out at the same time, so he thought that they will go out a bit slow, and so I didn't have the message to stop," explained Leclerc.
"And in these kind of cases, you kind of rely on the team. But these kind of things happen. And it was also in a tricky moment, because with all the red flags, everybody was such in a rush to get out to do some laps.
"So yeah, it's a combination of things. It's not something you want, but these things happen."
Norris unhappy even without incident
Norris was clearly dissatisfied with his Friday even beyond the clash, which he said “cost the team a bit of money” and suggested was lucky it didn’t cause more damage.
The runaway 2024 Singapore winner was slower than team-mate and championship leader Oscar Piastri in both sessions, with Piastri quickest of all in FP2.
“Just a difficult day for me, not feeling too great with the car, missing all of the feelings that I had here last year,” said Norris.
“So plenty of things to work on. Just a bad day.
“Oscar's quick so I've got nothing to complain about, but just not doing a very good job.”
Click here for Friday's Singapore F1 practice results
Norris said he got no high fuel running because of the disrupted FP2 with red flags and his own incident.
When asked if he would do high fuel work in the daytime FP3 session on Saturday that is so unrepresentative of race conditions, or just go straight into the race with no such data, Norris replied: “Yeah, just wing it and go into the race.”
Such was his blunt tone after a disappointing day that it was hard to tell how much Norris was joking. But Piastri, looking to bounce back from his nightmare Azerbaijan weekend, was clearly in a better mood.
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“I think I found my feet on the medium at the end there and the soft felt good,” said Piastri.
“Obviously not much representative race running, but the car's been in a good place.
“I feel like I've learned a lot through today, and that's the aim of practice. So it's been a good day.”
