Charles Leclerc fears Max Verstappen punishment after slip of the tongue in F1 press conference

Lando Norris was closing in on Leclerc before the Monegasque driver lost control of his car driving round the final bend and went off the track.

Leclerc only just managed to keep his car out of the barriers before recovering to secure a podium finish.

He was asked about the incident in the post-race press conference and Leclerc had a slight slip of the tongue.

"I don't know which face I did but it had to be a pretty stressful one," Leclerc said.

"When I lost it...I knew I had to do everything perfect. Lando was so quick at that time.

"I was trying to do everything possible for him to overheat [his tyres] behind me, and keep him as long as possible behind me.

"So I tried to have the best exit possible. I could see that he was very close out of that corner, but I lost the rear, and then you forget about Lando and you just hope you are going to take it back.

"I had one oversteer, and then when I recovered from that oversteer, I had an oversteer from the other side, and then I was like, 'F***!'.

"But luckily..."

Leclerc's expletive led to gasps from the media in the room before the Ferrari driver quickly realised his error.

"Sorry! Oh no! Oh nooo! I don't want to join Max [laughs]," he joked.

"Then I was just hoping to bring the car to the finish line and get that third place."

Max Verstappen was punished by the FIA for swearing in a press conference at the Singapore Grand Prix last month.

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Stewards ruled that the three-time world champion must 'accomplish some work of public interest' for his use of language, but that wasn't defined.

Verstappen would have been expecting to challenge for a podium in Mexico City, but he ended up sixth after receiving two 10-second penalties for incidents with Lando Norris.

The Dutchman was also given two penalty points on his licence after the race, taking him to six over a 12-month period.