Ferrari summon drivers to Maranello inquest after Brazil crash

Ferrari has called both Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc to its Formula 1 headquarters at Maranello to explain their collision at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Vettel and Leclerc crashed into each other on Lap 66 of Sunday’s race at Interlagos as they battled over fourth place in the closing stages.

Leclerc mugged his teammate into Turn 1, before Vettel fought back along the run to Turn 4 but the pair made contact as the German attempted to regain the position around the outside.

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto labelled the incident as a “silly action” and revealed the Scuderia will deal with the matter internally behind closed doors back in Italy.

“I’ve not reviewed the incident and I don’t want to do it today,” Binotto said after the race in Sao Paulo.

“I think that when doing things in the heat of the moment, you can come to the wrong conclusions.

"I heard both drivers, but they will meet again together with them to discuss what happened and there will be time for the team to analyse all the video and the data.

“Whatever will be the judgement, more important is that we are disappointed and sorry for the team.

“First and foremost, the two drivers should be sorry for the team. It is true it has been a very small crash with a big consequence, but still that sort of thing should not happen.”

Both drivers initially appeared to blame each other over team radio for the collision but remained coy on the subject when they addressed the media directly after the race.

The moment the race turned on its head #BrazilGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/Y77NrJMJ0g

— Formula 1 (@F1) November 17, 2019

Binotto insisted Ferrari’s review would not be about finding which driver is at fault or whether it should hand out any punishments to either.

“It’s not a matter of fining or blaming,” he explained.

“They were free to fight, we let them race and the reason for that is that we have the second place in the constructors’, so they were, somehow, only battling for their position in the drivers’ championship.

“Free to fight doesn’t mean to do silly actions, especially between the two teammates and the two Ferraris. For me, it was simply a silly action.

“We have tried to manage drivers this season, we have been criticised for doing it and when they are free to fight, it may be that we are criticised because they are free to fight,” he added.

“There is always a reason for what we are deciding to do and it was right to let them race, certainly. Because, as I said, we had secured second place in the constructors’ championship.

“There is always something you can do better but today the mistakes were from the drivers. What as a team what could we have done better? We need to think, not in the heat [of the moment] but we will think.

“Certainly we need to improve that for the future and that is not to happen anymore.”