Ferrari 'forgot' to tell Leclerc about Vettel's penalty

Sebastian Vettel almost lost second place to Charles Leclerc in Canada, but the Monegasque was unaware of the drama that was unfolding.

Charles Leclerc has revealed Ferrari failed to tell him that team-mate Sebastian Vettel had received a five-second time penalty towards the end of the Canadian Grand Prix, with the team admitting they "forgot" to pass the information on.

Vettel was on course for victory in Montreal on Sunday but was handed a time penalty for an unsafe re-entry to the track after running wide under pressure from eventual winner Lewis Hamilton with 22 laps remaining, the two rivals almost colliding with each other and the wall.

It meant the German had to settle for second place despite being the first man across the line, and he was furious after the race, while Leclerc finished third.

Vettel's position could have been even worse, though, with Leclerc only finishing one second adrift of him after the time penalty had been taken into account, but the Monegasque youngster insisted he had not even been told about the situation.

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"I didn't know anything about it," Leclerc said after the race. 

"The team didn't let me know that Seb had a five-second penalty, so I was just trying to push to try and catch Lewis up, but I didn't know about the penalty.

"I was pushing very hard to catch up. I saw they were fighting, I saw they were close at least. I saw also that we were quite quick and we were catching up, so I was just pushing very hard so if anything happened I had the opportunity to be as close as possible to do so."

But Leclerc added: "So no, it wouldn't have changed my approach [had I known]."

Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto conceded there had been a breakdown in communication.

"We didn't [tell him]," he said. "It has been a mistake from our side.

"I think we were very busy on the pit wall and simply we forgot. We should have done it but we didn't."

Ferrari has lodged an intention to appeal against the time penalty for Vettel, and regardless of the outcome Binotto wants to take positives out of the weekend.

He added: "We were the fastest on track and that is important. We know there are weaknesses to address, but the season is not over.

"We proved we were competitive, and that fact has been a confidence booster for the whole team."