BARCELONA, Spain — Charles Leclerc said he had been trying to get off the racing line when he barged into the side of Lando Norris’ car during final practice on Saturday. Leclerc had been forced to bail out of a timed lap when Norris slowed ahead of him. Moments afterwards, Leclerc slowed and then banged wheels with Norris’ car. Norris took pole position several hours later and after the session TV cameras caught him being told by Max Verstappen that Leclerc had only been reprimanded for the incident. “My front wing was completely f——. Crazy!” a puzzled Norris can be heard saying. The stewards stopped short of a penalty for Leclerc and its verdict stated the Ferrari driver had misjudged the situation. Leclerc explained the incident from his viewpoint after the session. “Yeah, well, I mean the version is very simple,” Leclerc said. “Lando exited the pit lane and I was behind on a push lap. “Then when he aborted, I also aborted, I braked to be alongside him and I misjudged. So I was on the right, I didn’t want to impede either of the cars behind, and so I was a bit in the middle by being frustrated and looking in the mirrors to try and not impede, and then we collided, but it was more misunderstanding more than anything.” When asked to clarify if he wasn’t trying to gesticulate at Norris for holding it up, he said: “No, no, no, I mean you’re always frustrated when you do that, but you never want to touch because obviously in FP3 that’s the least thing you want to do to damage the car, well my car first of all, because I’ve got qualifying right after. “So it’s never the goal, but yeah.” The incident added to the list of drama of Norris and McLaren’s day. A fire at the beginning of the day forced the team to evacuate its hospitality unit, with one team member taken to hospital as a precaution.
