Carlos Sainz might be neck-deep in trouble with Ferrari after his nearly disastrous battle with teammate Charles Leclerc. The Spaniard, who was battling with Fernando Alonso for the podium throughout the race, nearly destroyed Leclerc’s position while doing so. This left the Monegasque fuming on his team radio, and he has assertively called for a post-race team meeting.

Till Lap 15 of the Sprint Race in Shanghai, Alonso, in P3, was leading a DRS train with Carlos Sainz, Sergio Perez, and Charles Leclerc behind. But Lap 16 turned out to be an Oscar-winning thriller. Sainz eventually made a bold overtake on Alonso through Turn 6. However, the 2-time champion didn’t give up—a strong wheel-to-wheel battle ensued, which surprisingly allowed Perez to make a double overtake on the battling Spaniards to seal the podium places.

Eventually, Alonso retired owing to a right-front puncture. This left the 2 Ferraris in a dramatic battle for P4. Sainz and Leclerc got uncomfortably close at the end of Lap 16. “What the F***”, the Monegasque exclaimed after nearly colliding. Silence followed that message till the end of the Sprint race, as Leclerc finished P4, ahead of Sainz.

The drama had only begun. “Let’s speak,” Leclerc assertively told Xavier Marcos Padros, his race engineer. “We’re fighting more… he’s (Sainz) fighting me more than the other. But anyway.” ‘Xavi’, quick on his feet, defused the situation by commending Leclerc’s tire management and his overall performance.

Ferrari has started to face the ugly after-effects of firing its top-performing driver. Team Principal Frederic Vasseur can only hope that this doesn’t continue throughout the Chinese GP weekend. Leclerc, however, has quickly shifted his focus onto qualifying, despite the irritation from Sainz.

Charles Leclerc worries about a “small line” to get things wrong against Max Verstappen

The Ferraris can have as many civil battles as they fancy, but defeating Red Bull and Max Verstappen will remain their sole aim. Max Verstappen, who lined up P4 on the Sprint Grid, finished P1, as usual. And this could repeat in the main race tomorrow unless Ferrari works as a team to conquer Shanghai.

After the sprint race, Leclerc was asked about the importance of out-qualifying Verstappen for the upcoming session. “(It’s) Super important, super important,” the Ferrari driver emphasized. “All the work I did yesterday in SQ1/2 to find feeling again… it doesn’t mean it will be the same this evening because there’s only a small line to go on the wrong side. But I worked a lot on that, and I’m confident I did steps forward.”

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Leclerc sounds more confident compared to the last 2 race weekends in Japan and Australia. Yet, Verstappen continues his supreme run. Can Ferrari overturn this dynamic to repeat their Australian heroics in China?