Red Bull's Mekies says Leclerc's five-second Mexico City penalty felt too lenient

Racing Bulls team principal Laurent Mekies has criticised the FIA stewards’ handling of Charles Leclerc’s lap-one incident at the Mexico City Grand Prix, saying the five-second penalty handed to the Ferrari driver “felt a bit light” and came too late to meaningfully affect the race outcome.

Leclerc and Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton made contact at Turn 4 on the opening lap of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, with both cars running completely off the circuit. Mekies said he immediately expected a penalty, but the delayed FIA ruling undermined its sporting impact.

“The first thing that comes to your mind is that should be a penalty,” Mekies said during his post-race media duties. “That’s the first thing that come to your mind as a competitor at that moment.”

By the time race control confirmed the five-second sanction, Leclerc had already used the clean air ahead of Hamilton to build a gap that largely absorbed the time deduction. Mekies was candid about his frustration with both the timing and the severity of the decision.

“We were certainly a bit surprised by how long it took to see the penalty confirmed,” he admitted. “We were also surprised that it was only five seconds because probably at the time they had given that penalty, I think Charles was already clear five seconds from Lewis anyway.”

Despite his reservations about the stewards’ call, Mekies acknowledged there was little to be done about it. “It’s what it is,” he said, while maintaining the punishment “felt a bit light.”

Rather than relying on the FIA ruling to neutralise the Ferrari threat, Mekies and his strategy group responded with a proactive pit-stop cover. When Leclerc came in for fresh tyres, Racing Bulls brought their own car in simultaneously, denying Ferrari any clean-air undercut advantage.

“It was once again an extremely strong execution,” Mekies said. “The usual suspects with the strategy group and on the pitwall came up with that when we heard Charles was coming in, and that was the best we had just about the gap to him considering the penalty, and took the shot, and it worked.”