Charles Leclerc clears the air with Carlos Sainz: “There won't be any problems”

Charles Leclerc has cleared the air with Carlos Sainz following their frustrating F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Leclerc was left annoyed by Sainz’s actions following the second round of pit stops in Las Vegas.

Sainz was ordered not to attack Leclerc after both drivers stopped - but the Spaniard overtook.

Leclerc vented his frustration over team radio with an expletive-laden rant.

The Ferrari driver was keen to play down last weekend’s drama, outline their plan to “work together” in a bid to beat McLaren to the constructors’ title.

“Nothing special,” he said in the pre-race FIA press conference in Qatar.

“As I said, we have a really good relationship with Carlos and sometimes I’ve overstepped the line and sometimes he has and then it only requires discussion between us two, and we look ourselves in the eye, and we know each other since a very long time now. We understand each other very, very quickly.

“So I have no doubt sometimes we need these kind of things to reset a little bit and I have no doubt, working together in the last two races, there won’t be any problems or whatsoever, because at the end, it’s a chance for both of us to try and win that Constructors’.

“We know that an opportunity like that doesn’t happen very often, and we’ve got to do everything on both of our sides in order to try and win that and we need each other in order to win that, because it’s not going to be easy this weekend. By working as a team, we can maybe achieve that.”

Sainz will bow out of Ferrari following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as he makes the switch to Williams.

Leclerc insists he’s got a “really good” relationship with Sainz - something that will be maintained even when they’re not teammates.

“I’ve said it many times, on one hand, it’s not like I’m going miss him like crazy, because he will still be in the paddock, maybe 20 metres away,” Leclerc explained.

“So as I said before, Carlos isn’t my girlfriend either, and so I really like Carlos, but I’m sure we will still spend a lot of time together.

“And as I was saying earlier, we have a really good relationship that will stay there even after our relationship within Ferrari so we won’t be working together anymore, but we’ll still spend time together and he is a good person and we get along very, very well.”