Kimi Antonelli collided with Charles Leclerc during the Dutch Grand Prix.

F1 Grand Prix of Netherlands

Kimi Antonelli went to the Ferrari motorhome to apologise to Charles Leclerc immediately after the Dutch Grand Prix. The Monegasque racer wasn’t present, but team principal Fred Vasseur was, and made his appreciation for the gesture clear. Antonelli was hounding Leclerc for fifth place in the closing stages after a strong recovery drive until that point, but let his ambition get the better of him when an undercut opportunity presented itself on lap 53.

With Leclerc on cold tyres fresh out of the pit lane, the Italian lunged in at Turn Three on the low line, but his car washed up the track and clipped the 27-year-old on corner exit. Antonelli continued, albeit picking up a 10-second penalty for the incident, while the Ferrari driver’s race was over, and he spent the remainder of the Grand Prix beyond the barriers by the track.

Immediately after the race, Antonelli took the blame for the crash and then visited the Ferrari motorhome to approach Leclerc. While the eight-time Grand Prix winner was not present, his team principal, Vasseur, was there to speak with the teenager.

“Yes, he came and apologised to me as Charles wasn’t there,” Vasseur explained. “I appreciate this. It can happen. It’s not easy to overtake in Zandvoort; you must take risks. He took a risk, made a mistake, and apologised. That’s the right reaction. For me, it was a racing incident.”

F1 Grand Prix of Netherlands

Leclerc had his own say on the crash, which capped off a miserable weekend for Ferrari. The Scuderia overcame a challenging set of practice sessions on Friday to salvage P6 and P7 in qualifying, but neither driver took the chequered flag.

Just over 30 laps before his team-mate came a cropper at the hands of Antonelli, Lewis Hamilton suffered a snap mid-corner at Turn Three, climbing onto the slippery run-off area and destroying the front-right of his SF-25 machine on the outside barrier.

“It’s a mistake from Kimi,” Leclerc declared. “I think you’ve got to be very aggressive on a track like this to overtake, which I think he tried to be aggressive. Maybe it was a bit too much, and he went on to touch my rear left, and that was the end of my race. So it’s disappointing.”

While Antonelli’s mistake had enormous consequences for Leclerc, the 18-year-old’s willingness to accept blame means he is not burning bridges in the paddock. He adopted a similar approach after taking Max Verstappen out at the start of the Austrian Grand Prix in June.