Fred Vasseur may be trying to downplay the Ferrari team-mate tension, but Dutch pundit Olav Mol claims Carlos Sainz gave Charles Leclerc the figurative “middle finger” at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Although Ferrari went to Sin City with pundits and rivals proclaiming them the favourites, Mercedes had the better pace in the chilly desert air and raced to the 1-2 ahead of Sainz and Leclerc.

Charles Leclerc launched a rant after Carlos Sainz gave ‘the middle finger’

Leclerc though, felt it should’ve been Leclerc and Sainz at the chequered flag with his team-mate seemingly ignoring team orders.

Pitting three laps after Sainz in the second round of stops at the high degradation 50-lap race, Leclerc was told by his race engineer Bryan Bozzi that he’d come out ahead of his team-mate and that he wouldn’t challenge him.

“Carlos has been told to not overtake, but it’s really close, he might just be in front,” said Bozzi. “He has been told to not put you under pressure.”

But challenged and overtaken by Sainz into Turn 4, Leclerc hit back: “Maybe try in Spanish!”

Fighting for fourth and fifth at that moment, the stakes were raised as the Ferrari pairing overtook Max Verstappen with a podium result up for grabs. Leclerc fell short by 2.4s and launched into a tirade over the radio.

“I did my job but being nice f**ks me over all the f**king time, all the f**king time. It’s not even being nice, it’s just being respectful,” he ranted.

“I know I need to shut up but at one point it’s always the same, so… oh my f**king god.”

And on it went until he noted that “s**t, s**t, s**t, the radio is on” and apologised.

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But if you ask Ziggo Sport pundit Mol, Leclerc has nothing to apologise for as Sainz didn’t play the team-mate game.

“He basically lectured Carlos Sainz,” he said of Leclerc’s rant.

“After the pit stop, he got a radio, where the team said that they had asked Carlos not to attack him, so that he would not get graining on the hard tyre, so that he could calmly bring the tyres up to temperature.

“Two corners later Sainz overtakes him, and he almost gives the middle finger.

“That was not the agreement, and Sainz is not a team player in that. That is logical because he is leaving [for Williams].

“Ferrari should have intervened more strongly here. Leclerc is now 21 points behind Lando Norris, and that could have been eighteen.”

Leclerc too was annoyed that he lost points to Lando Norris in the fight for second place in the Drivers’ Championship. Had he finished third, the gap would’ve been done to 18 points but as it stands it is 21 with two races remaining.

Qatar and Abu Dhabi also mark Sainz’s last two races as a Ferrari driver as he’s off to Williams next season, the Scuderia having already signed Lewis Hamilton as Leclerc’s new team-mate.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur is determined to downplay the latest driver niggles, telling the media including PlanetF1.com: “They are doing comments on the [cooldown] lap and they don’t have always the full picture. We will discuss and it won’t be an issue.”

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