Why Charles Leclerc went unpunished for F1 delta time breach

Charles Leclerc has been cleared by the F1 stewards following an investigation into an alleged infringement.

The Ferrari driver was placed under investigation for failing to obey the maximum delta time between the Safety Car lines during Friday’s sprint qualifying session at the Chinese Grand Prix.

Leclerc was not punished because the stewards deemed he had backed off after being told to swap positions with Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton at the end of SQ2.

The stewards determined that Leclerc had not driven “unnecessarily slowly” and took no further action on the matter, having considered his actions to be “appropriate”.

“Both [Leclerc] and [Hamilton] commenced their preparation laps close to each other,” the Shanghai stewards noted.

“Hamilton followed Leclerc closely and Leclerc had [Stroll] ahead of him on a preparatory lap. Leclerc had to wait for [Stroll] to commence his push lap and in the meantime, Leclerc was overtaken by Hamilton on the orders of the team.

“Leclerc at all times maintained a reasonable speed and ultimately sought to create a reasonable gap behind Hamilton. All of this was done in an orderly fashion and no car behind Leclerc was affected by this. Therefore, Leclerc did not impede other drivers and gained no sporting advantage by his course of action.

“The stewards therefore determine that Leclerc did not drive “unnecessarily slowly”, and that evidently the reason he was above the maximum time was due to his appropriate actions and take no further action.”

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll was also cleared following an investigation into the same offence.

At last year’s Qatar Grand Prix, Max Verstappen was handed a one-place grid penalty for the infringement, having also been found guilty of impeding Mercedes’ George Russell.

Charles Leclerc a step behind Lewis Hamilton

Leclerc qualified fourth for Saturday’s sprint race, three places and 0.208s behind seven-time world champion Hamilton, who claimed his first pole position for Ferrari.

"I struggled on my side of the garage,” Leclerc admitted. “From the beginning, I felt like I was a step back compared to Lewis and Lewis was just faster today.

"I struggled a lot in Turns 1, 2 and 3, which is more or less the same struggles I had as last year so that's a bit of a shame but apart from that, everything was quite tight.

"Obviously a shame we start P4 but Lewis is on pole and hopefully we can have a good race together tomorrow."