{"id":122680,"date":"2025-09-06T07:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T07:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/122680\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T07:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T07:51:07","slug":"why-charles-leclerc-watched-from-a-hill-after-dutch-gp-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/122680\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Charles Leclerc watched from a hill after Dutch GP retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Leclerc revealed he opted to stay on a hill to watch the remainder of the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, as it would have been \u201cquite challenging\u201d to pass a grandstand on the way back to the paddock.<\/p>\n

Leclerc retired after contact with Kimi Antonelli last time out, with the Mercedes driver having subsequently been handed a penalty alongside offering an apology to the Ferrari driver, in the wake of the incident.<\/p>\n

Charles Leclerc explains hill viewpoint at Zandvoort<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher<\/p>\n

Leclerc<\/a>\u2018s damage following a shunt from Antonelli was enough to see him out of the race at Zandvoort, but found himself in the infield section of the circuit for the remainder of the race.<\/p>\n

While drivers are able to receive a recovery service back to the pit lane at most circuits, Leclerc revealed it was \u201cjust not possible\u201d in the Netherlands without passing a grandstand, which will have been full of fans at the time. Naturally, that would have slowed down his return to the pit lane quite significantly.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, he opted to stay and watch the rest of the race from a unique vantage point, with pictures of the Ferrari driver quickly circulating online as the Scuderia suffered a double DNF.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas it fun? I\u2019m not sure,\u201d Leclerc replied to PlanetF1.com\u2019s Thomas Maher and others at Monza.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it was nice to be able to at least watch the race from somewhere, but obviously, I was quite depressed after what happened, and as a team, to not score any points was disappointing.<\/p>\n

F1 2025: The season\u2019s winners and losers<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0The results of the F1 2025 championship <\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0The updated Drivers\u2019 and Constructors\u2019 Championship standings<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI think everybody is working towards letting us get back to the paddock whenever there\u2019s something [incidents], but on some tracks, it\u2019s just not possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way for me to get back to the paddock was to pass by a grandstand, which I think will have been quite challenging, so I just decided to wait there, which I think was the right choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuckily enough, there was at least a hill. So with all the bad luck we\u2019ve had, at least I stopped at the right place on track to have a good viewpoint. But yeah, I would rather have stayed in the race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leclerc and Ferrari will be hoping to put on a performance this weekend at Monza, however, with the Mon\u00e9gasque driver having won last year\u2019s Italian Grand Prix \u2013 his second at Ferrari\u2019s home race as a member of the Scuderia.<\/p>\n

After the difficulties the team faced last time out, Leclerc is hopeful that a home race for his team will be a fruitful one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope I\u2019m right, but I\u2019m kind of convinced it will be a better weekend compared to Zandvoort, because Zandvoort was a very difficult one for us,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think those very long corners, we seem to be struggling at. It\u2019s not new, it\u2019s been something over the years where we\u2019ve been struggling more than others in those kind of corners.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere in Monza, it should be better, because at least the long corners are high speed, and when the long corners are low speed, that\u2019s where we struggle, so I think we shall be better this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that means we\u2019ll be at the level of McLaren. I still think McLaren is the team to beat, but we\u2019ll be closer, I hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read next:\u00a0Fernando Alonso points at real \u2018problem\u2019 as latest F1 format changes\u00a0proposed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charles Leclerc revealed he opted to stay on a hill to watch the remainder of the Dutch Grand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,13275,817,826,813,816,818,44,17165,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-122680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-charles-leclerc","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-ferrari","13":"tag-formula-1","14":"tag-formula1","15":"tag-home-page","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-popular","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}