F1 | Leclerc gets irritated via radio over Hamilton not letting him by during first stint of Spanish GP

Had it not been for Kimi Antonelli's retirement, which then led to the Safety Car deployment, Charles Leclerc's plan to secure a podium in the Spanish GP probably wouldn't have worked, despite saving a set of soft tires by aborting his last Q3 attempt on Saturday.

The Monegasque driver, who started from P7 on the grid, immediately delivered an excellent getaway, overtaking both Mercedes cars and getting into the slipstream of his teammate, who also had a pretty solid start.

The number 16 immediately showed a race pace much faster than the seven-time world champion, quickly entering DRS range and putting pressure on him lap after lap.

However, perhaps thinking he had a clear track ahead, Hamilton surprisingly shut the door on his teammate at Turn 1, repeating the same move in the following two laps.

Only after a team order—perhaps a bit late—did Hamilton step aside and let Leclerc through, who meanwhile saw the gap to Lando Norris increase to six seconds just before the pit stop.

The safety car deployment then helped the Ferrari driver to easily get past Max Verstappen at the restart, but in recent hours Leclerc’s rather irritated words to his race engineer over the radio have started circulating on social media.

While Leclerc was able to celebrate his third podium of the season, Hamilton had to settle once again for a disappointing sixth place, after also being overtaken by a surprising Nico Hulkenberg.