diff --git a/dinky-client/dinky-client-1.18/src/main/java/org/apache/flink/kubernetes/KubernetesClusterDescriptor.java b/dinky-client/dinky-client-1.18/src/main/java/org/apache/flink/kubernetes/KubernetesClusterDescriptor.java
index 41b782176a..27ed7870ae 100644
--- a/dinky-client/dinky-client-1.18/src/main/java/org/apache/flink/kubernetes/KubernetesClusterDescriptor.java
+++ b/dinky-client/dinky-client-1.18/src/main/java/org/apache/flink/kubernetes/KubernetesClusterDescriptor.java
@@ -171,7 +171,8 @@ public ClusterClientProvider<String> deployApplicationCluster(
             throws ClusterDeploymentException {
         if (client.getService(ExternalServiceDecorator.getExternalServiceName(clusterId))
                 .isPresent()) {
-            throw new ClusterDeploymentException("The Flink cluster " + clusterId + " already exists.");
+            client.stopAndCleanupCluster(clusterId);
+            LOG.warn("The Flink cluster {} already exists, automatically stopAndCleanupCluster.", clusterId);
         }
 
         checkNotNull(clusterSpecification);