The battle between Ferrari teammates Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr has been a major storyline in recent weeks.
Rumours of a divide within the team garage emerged after Sainz benefitted from their strategy to win the British Grand Prix at Silverstone last weekend. Team principle Mattia Binotto gave a tetchy response to criticism of their strategy in the aftermath and all eyes have been on the team this week.
And despite the microscope on Ferrari, Leclerc and Sainz renewed their battle by going wheel to wheel in the Austrian Grand Prix Sprint race on Saturday. The pair traded places several times in the opening few laps as Max Verstappen opened up a hefty lead en route to victory.
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After the race, Leclerc, who finished second, admitted the battle with Sainz cost them "quite a bit of time" but declined to state that cost him the chance to compete with Verstappen.
"We lost a little bit of time in the battle with Carlos, but it was fun," Leclerc told Sky Sports F1.
"Whether or not it would have been possible to do anything more without the battle, I don't think so anyway. It's never ideal to have a battle where we've lost quite a bit of time, but it's the way it is for now."
Sainz shared Leclerc's view on the battle but was far more certain in his claim that their wheel to wheel racing did not cost them a chance to beat Verstappen.
"I think today there was very little to gain or to lose by fighting," he said.
"We're talking about one point more, or one point less, because there's not many points in the Sprint. And also Max looked very in control the whole race up front, so it's not like we lost out."
At the start of the weekend, Ferrari chief Binotto was forced to deny claims there was a divide in the garage and that members of Leclerc's team snubbed celebrations after Sainz took his maiden win last weekend.
“That was not true,” Binotto told Autosport. “When I heard or I read it, [I was] surprised. What I did was to check because, you never know, maybe there is something I missed. But I checked and that was not the case at all.
“[I’m] surprised and again disappointed to read that sometimes there are things written which do not correctly say what was happening.
“Yes, the team was not fully happy at the time because we lost an opportunity after the Safety Car. But very happy for Carlos, who won his first race ever at Silverstone. He did a fantastic weekend starting from pole and then the race itself. The entire team was there cheering on Carlos. So no issues there.”
Leclerc himself also poured cold water on the stories of discontent within the team when he arrived in Austria. “It is a shame to see all of this type of things because it is definitely not what is happening inside the team,” he told Sky Sports F1. “We are a very united team, we have always been and it’s not these difficult races that will make a change.
“Of course we were disappointed after last weekend. I think we were because speaking about last weekend, I think we are one-two [then] we finished one-four, so of course some parts of the team were disappointed. But this was definitely not the reason or whatsoever for not everybody being on the picture.
“Actually, I think half of the team that stayed on [for the picture] missed the plane to go back home and it was quite tricky. If we want the full details of it, we wanted to do a picture first but Carlos was not here. So we had to delay everything.
“But there’s no hard feelings or whatsoever. Of course there’s disappointment because of my side. I can only be disappointed obviously leading the race and and finishing fourth. But everyone was very happy for Carlos and this is the feeling there is inside the team.”
