Leclerc fears Verstappen punishment after press conference F-bomb

Charles Leclerc is hoping to avoid joining Max Verstappen in serving a ‘community service’ punishment after swearing in an official FIA press conference.

Verstappen was made an example of by the FIA over the Singapore Grand Prix weekend when he used the f-word during the press conference on Thursday ahead of the race.

The FIA determined that the three-time F1 champion be “obliged to accomplish some work of public interest”.

Ferrari driver Leclerc used the same expletive in describing the moment when he almost lost his car on entry to the long start-finish straight as he came under pressure from McLaren’s Lando Norris as they battled for second place late in the race.

“I don’t know which face I did but it had to be a pretty stressful one,” said Leclerc, speaking to media including RacingNews365.

“When I lost it…I knew I had to do everything perfect. Lando was so quick at that time.

“I was trying to do everything possible for him to overheat [his tyres] behind me, and keep him as long as possible behind me.

“So I tried to have the best exit possible. I could see that he was very close out of that corner, but I lost the rear, and then you forget about Lando and you just hope you are going to take it back.

“I had one oversteer, and then when I recovered from that oversteer, I had an oversteer from the other side, and then I was like, ‘F***!’.

“But luckily…”

With audible gasps from the assembled media, Leclerc immediately realised what he had said.

Laughing, he added: “Sorry! Oh no! Oh nooo! I don’t want to join Max [laughs]”, before concluding, “Then I was just hoping to bring the car to the finish line and get that third place.”