AP – What a way to say hello.
Charles Leclerc and his younger brother Arthur drove side-by-side in matching Ferraris at the end of the first practice session yesterday for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
“Just saying hello to my brother,” Arthur told the team over the radio after Charles gave him a wave on their slowdown lap at the Yas Marina Circuit.
Brothers have raced in Formula One (F1) before – Michael and Ralf Schumacher both won races – but F1 said the Leclerc brothers from Monaco were the first to be teammates in an official session as part of a championship race weekend.
The 24-year-old Arthur Leclerc, who previously drove in F2, was borrowing Carlos Sainz Jr’s Ferrari because of a rule that teams must give younger and less experienced drivers practice time at least twice per season.
Charles Leclerc said his family was flying in to Abu Dhabi to watch the brothers.
“It will be a very special moment,” he said in a team statement on Thursday. “Because to a certain extent it means that all the sacrifices my family made will have served a purpose.”
At one stage, the family reportedly had to pause Arthur’s career when he was a teenager because of the financial demands of supporting Charles in his rise toward F1.
Charles was fastest in first practice but his session began with a major setback as Ferrari had to replace the battery pack on his car. That led to an expected 10-place grid penalty for tomorrow’s race and a heavy blow to the team’s hopes of beating McLaren to the constructors’ title.
Arthur spent the first part of the session driving with his car fitted with an “aero rake”, a frame with sensors that allow teams to measure air flows. By the end, he was 18th fastest of the 20 drivers in the session, 1.858 seconds off his brother’s time.
