Formula 1

F1 News: Charles Leclerc Demands Changes Over Visor Tear-Off Issue

Charles Leclerc has spoken out after his bad luck during the Belgian Grand Prix after Max Verstappen’s visor tear off became stuck in his Ferrari’s cooling duct causing multiple issues including over heating brakes and sensor failure.

Within the opening laps of the race, the 2021 champion removed a number of tear offs from his helmet visor – which he is permitted to do – as he felt his vision was becoming impaired by them. Now, Leclerc, who finished 6th with a 5-second penalty blamed on the sensor failure, has spoken out, asking for a regulation change so this doesn’t happen again.

“In all fairness, you cannot calculate that,” Leclerc told the press. “I’m not angry at all with Max, it is obviously not the fault of the drivers.

“In this particular situation, I think somebody was losing oil or something and I could not see anything through my visor, all the drivers in front of me couldn’t see anything through their visors.

“The first opportunity we had to remove a tear-off was on the straight, so I find myself with tear-offs flying all over the place and in that circumstance you cannot do much as a driver.”

Leclerc, alongside Verstappen and a number of other drivers, were forced to start at the back of the grid due to taking a number of grid penalties. And while the performance of his car isn’t like that of Verstappen’s Red Bull, a podium would have been a nice finish for the Monegasque driver. But after a strategy change, this was all but impossible.

Leclerc is now calling for more rules around the tear-offs, asking if they could be stored somewhere on the car during a race.

“I think maybe moving forward it will be good that we maybe find a solution,” Leclerc said.

“We might look at something to find a way to keep the tear-off somewhere in the car.

“I guess there were reasons why this rule was dropped, but I’m not aware of these reasons. Maybe there are also other solutions.”

Alex Harrington

Alex started racing at a young age so certainly knows his way around a car and a track. He can just about put a sentence together too, which helps. He has a great interest in the latest models, but would throw all of his money at a rusty old French classic and a 300ZX. Contact: [email protected]

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