'Hello to my brother': Charles and Arthur Leclerc team up for Ferrari in F1 practice

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 Friday 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 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 Formula 2, 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 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 Sunday'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.

As the last round of the year, Abu Dhabi is a popular choice to try out a younger driver, since teams are typically more familiar with how to set up the car for different conditions regardless of feedback from the drivers.

Five other teams gave practice time to drivers who won't be racing Sunday, including F2 driver Isack Hadjar in champion Max Verstappen's Red Bull and former F2 champion Felipe Drugovich taking over Lance Stroll's Aston Martin.

Alpine driver Jack Doohan is set to make his race debut Sunday as well.

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc of Monaco in action during the first free practice ahead of the Formula One Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, UAE, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

Ferrari driver Arthur Leclerc of Monaco in action during the first free practice ahead of the Formula One Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, UAE, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

Ferrari driver Arthur Leclerc of Monaco prepares for his debut free practice ahead of the Formula One Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, UAE, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

Ferrari driver Arthur Leclerc of Monaco stands in the garage before his debut free practice ahead of the Formula One Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, UAE, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

Ferrari driver Arthur Leclerc of Monaco prepares for his debut free practice ahead of the Formula One Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, UAE, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rapper Tory Lanez was hospitalized after an attack Monday at a California prison where he's serving a 10-year sentence for shooting hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion in the feet, authorities said.

Lanez, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, was attacked at a housing unit at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi, at about 7:20 a.m., Pedro Calderon Michel, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said in an email.

Michel did not specify how Lanez was attacked, but a message posted on the rapper's Instagram account Monday evening said Lanez was stabbed 14 times and both his lungs collapsed. The post said Lanez is breathing on his own.

“Despite being in pain, he is talking normally, in good spirits, and deeply thankful to God that he is pulling through,” the post said, adding Lanez was stabbed in his back, torso, head and face.

Staff immediately gave Lanez medical aid and called 911, and he was taken to an outside hospital, Michel said. The prison's investigative unit and the Kern County District Attorney's Office are investigating, he said.

The prison is about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Los Angeles in the mountains of the Mojave Desert and houses about 1,700 medium- and maximum-security inmates.

In December 2022, Lanez was convicted of three felonies: assaul/t with a semiautomatic firearm; having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.

Megan, whose legal name is Megan Pete, testified during the trial that in July 2020, after they left a party at Kylie Jenner’s Hollywood Hills home, Lanez fired the gun at the back of her feet and shouted for her to dance as she walked away from an SUV in which they had been riding.

She had bullet fragments in both feet that had to be surgically removed. It wasn't until months after the incident that she publicly identified Lanez as the person who had fired the gun.

A judge rejected a motion for a new trial from Lanez’s lawyers, who are appealing his conviction. They did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Megan recently alleged that Lanez was harassing her from prison through surrogates, and in January a judge issued a protective order through 2030 ordering him to stop any such harassment or any other contact.

The 32-year-old Canadian Lanez began releasing mixtapes in 2009 and saw a steady rise in popularity, moving on to major label albums, two of which reached the top 10 on Billboard's charts.

The case created a firestorm in the hip-hop community, churning up issues including the reluctance of Black victims to speak to police, gender politics in hip-hop, online toxicity, and the ramifications of misogynoir, a particular brand of misogyny Black women experience.

The often dramatic trial was packed with friends and family members of Lanez who felt he was a victim of both the justice system and the powerful people around Megan, who his managed by Jay-Z's Roc Nation.

When the verdict was announced, Lanez's father, Sonstar Peterson, jumped up and angrily denounced prosecutors and the system before he was dragged from the chaotic courtroom where many in the audience were shouting similar things. He later apologized to the judge.

Megan Thee Stallion, 30, was already a major rising star at the time of the shooting, and her music’s popularity has soared since. She won a Grammy for best new artist in 2021, and she had No. 1 singles with “Savage,” featuring Beyoncé, and as a guest on Cardi B’s “WAP.”

FILE - Rapper Tory Lanez performs at HOT 97 Summer Jam 2018 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on June 10, 2018. (Photo by Scott Roth/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Singer Tory Lanez returns to the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center for his trial, Dec. 13, 2022, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)