Charles Leclerc brutally roasts his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz: “Not racing”

Charles Leclerc jokingly roasted his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz in a viral video. The Spaniard joked that he is better than Leclerc at golf, chess, paddle, and tennis before the Monegasque brutally replied, "Except racing."

Watch the video below:

While the comment was made in good fun, Leclerc does have a better career record than Sainz. The Spaniard did, however, manage to beat the former Sauber driver in 2021. Charles Leclerc was an early title favorite in 2022 after he won two of the opening three races but lost out to Max Verstappen by a significant margin.

This time around, however, the Monegasque dropped out of Bahrain's season opener due to a reliability issue and finished the 2023 Saudi Arabian GP in P7 after starting the race in P12 due to an engine penalty. The Scuderia team doesn't look to be in title-challenging form just yet given their reliability woes.

Both drivers had a disappointing pace on the hard tire compound in Jeddah, leading to sub-par results for the team. Leclerc put in a brilliant lap in qualifying on Saturday, finishing P2. However, he took a 10-place grid penalty for taking on new power unit components ahead of the weekend.

Charles Leclerc admits Ferrari's deficit to frontrunners

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc has emphasized that the team must put in an extensive effort to discover performance and speed in their 2023 car, the SF-23.

Despite starting in P12, Leclerc got off to a decent start at the Saudi Arabian GP, finding himself among the top ten after a few laps. However, his progress was disrupted by the mid-race safety car, which allowed Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton to overtake him.

In an interview with Sky Sports, Leclerc mentioned that he was stuck behind his teammate Carlos Sainz for the remainder of the race and did not have much pace. He said:

“I don’t know if they were out of reach. The thing is that once I got within a second and a half to Carlos, it was very difficult to get any closer than that – the pace difference wasn’t big enough. I did a small mistake when I was within DRS, and then when I lost it, then that was it."

"I just stayed there. So it’s like this. Honestly, I don’t think there was much more anyway in the car today. We just need to work to find some pace.”

With more than 20 races to go this year, there is still plenty of time for Ferrari to give Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz a car capable of dethroning Max Verstappen and Red Bull.