Nico Hulkenberg has slammed Charles Leclerc for being “too aggressive” with his overtakes during the Monaco Grand Prix.
The Ferrari man started well out of position for his home race in P15 after a poor strategy call from the team, and as he warned, the Monegasque driver was in no mood to wait around.
Leclerc made his way passed Lando Norris and Romain Grosjean, but when he launched an over-ambitious move on Renault’s Hulkenberg into Rascasse, the pair collided.
Hulkenberg’s race was compromised from there, while Leclerc would suffer a puncture and retire later in the race due to the damage caused to his SF90.
“Charles was too aggressive. He came quite far back and I didn’t leave much of a gap anyway,” Hulkenberg told reporters after finishing P14.
“Then I saw that he launched and I tried to play fair. I opened the steering and tried to leave him some space and let us both live. He spun on his own axis and that kissed my car.
“I didn’t hit the wall but it sliced my rear tyre open and that’s where it all went too wrong. He was just too ambitious.”
“My race engineer told me that he had passed Grosjean the lap before, and I could sense his move coming. But you have to weigh up your chances as a driver and know when it’s a real opportunity or not.
“I think he was impatient today, frustrated from yesterday and he wanted to get through the field. That’s Monaco, it doesn’t work like that.”
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Debris strewn across the track from Leclerc's car #MonacoGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/UA9nsNZ0Vi
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Meanwhile, Leclerc said that a race which started “fun”, ended in “disaster”.
“It was very difficult. As I said before the race, I had to take a lot of risks, which we did,” he explained.
“It was fun at the beginning but unfortunately it ended in disaster.
“But that’s the problem with Monaco when you are starting 15th, which is not our real pace position. It was difficult to come back from today.”
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