Charles Leclerc failed to complete the race in any of his three appearances at the Monaco Grand Prix. (Photo: Albert Gea / Reuters)
The abandonment he suffered on Sunday at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya due to a problem with the power unit of his Ferrari and Max Verstappen’s victory in that Spanish Grand Prix is why Charles Leclerc gave up first place in 2022 Formula 1 championship for the first time in years. The chance of revenge will come seven days later with a special spice: it will happen in Monaco, his home.
However, racing on his land has not been an enjoyable experience for the 24-year-old driver, on the contrary: in his three participations in the Monegasque Grand Prix, he has not yet completed the test. That’s why the desire for revenge is doubled this weekend: for his first retirement of the current season, finishing 16 consecutive competitions in which he saw the checkered flag, and especially for three home defeats.
Leclerc is arguing his first career aboard Formula 1 in Monaco in 2018, the year of his debut in the highest category of world motorsports. However, he has a less encouraging record with the principal. Last year he became Formula 2 champion, with seven wins in 22 races, but two of his three retirements took place on the Montecarlo street railroad.
Charles Leclerc participated for the first time in a Monaco Grand Prix in 2018 aboard a Sauber.
The start of the 2018 season, Leclerc’s debut in Formula 1 with the average Sauber team, was positive before arriving in Monaco: the rookie completed his first five trials and even achieved a very creditable sixth place in Azerbaijan . At home, he finished 14th in the standings on Saturday, May 26th.
On Sunday, the local driver won two seats and battled New Zealander Brendon Hartley for 11th place, but eight laps from the checkered flag, at the exit of the tunnel and before the entrance to the chicane, he collided with his car in the back of Hartley’s Toro Rosso. The incident, which required a virtual safety vehicle, drove off the race.
The crash was the result of a malfunction in the Sauber’s left front brake disc. “Four laps ago, I felt like the brake pedal was too long. And at a certain point, (the brakes) just gave up,” Leclerc explained after his first retirement in the series.
Beyond that desertion, his first year was positive and led Ferrari, the team of which he was a test driver in 2016 and 2017, to pick him up to join multi-champion Sebastian Vettel in 2019. That season he had a very good start, with four finishing in fifth place and his first access to a podium in Bahrain. But Monaco had a headache again.
Saturday May 25 started very well for him, as he was the fastest in the third training session. But in qualifying he didn’t even get past Q1, after the Ferrari team decided not to send his car on the track in the decisive section of the session, confident that the time he set for his first fastest lap attempt was enough. to surpass the cut.
“I asked if they were sure and they said, ‘We think so.’ I consulted: ‘Shouldn’t we go out again?’ But there are no definite answers. It’s frustrating to miss the Q1 with a Ferrari, but more than just being at home and on a track where it’s very hard to overtake. We cannot afford these things ”, Leclerc complained after that wrong day.
Leclerc and his Ferrari at a practice session at the Monte Carlo circuit in 2019. (Photo: Boris Horvat / AFP)
“We made a mistake. It’s a misjudgment, a misjudgment of what we call cutoff time, the threshold at which we think we’re comfortable entering the next session. What happened today is not enough of the margin we applied, “admits Ferrari director Mattia Binotto.
Although he achieved the 16th record in the classification, a penalty by Italian Antonio Giovinazzi put Monegasque in 15th place on the starting grid. From there he has to come back if he wants to continue his eight consecutive career scoring points. Once the red traffic light went out, he clarified that this was his intention. In the first lap he overtook Finn Kimi Raikkonen, in the second he left British Lando Norris and in the seventh he counted Frenchman Roman Grosjean.
But on the eighth lap he followed Nico Hülkenberg and ended all bad: he tried to overtake him at the corner of La Rascasse and ended up doing a half-spin. The collision with the German Renault resulted in a puncture in the right rear wheel and damage to the floor of his Ferrari. Although he got to the pits and got back on track after changing a tire, he only managed six laps because of the cracks in the floor of the vehicle that forced him to leave.
“Now that I’ve given it my all, I know I have to do something different and there’s a lot of risk to move forward. I enjoyed the start of the race and it went pretty well. After the touch with Nico I tried to continue but lacked that I lacked downforce and had to retire. It was a difficult weekend ”, Leclerc learned that day.
After that setback, Monegasque will chain four podiums, in Canada, France, Austria and Great Britain, and in September he will achieve his first two victories in the category over consecutive weekends, in Belgium and Italy.
In 2020, the Monaco Grand Prix will not be part of the Formula 1 calendar for the first time in 65 years due to a coronavirus pandemic, so Leclerc had to wait until May 2021 to take revenge on his land. That year he started in two sixth places, in Bahrain and Portugal, and two fourth places, in Emilia-Romagna and Spain.
The weekend started in the best way possible. On Friday he set the fastest training time and on Saturday he made the fastest qualifying lap on his first attempt in Q3. However, on his second attempt, at the end of the session, Leclerc lost control of his vehicle on Turn 15 and ended up crashing into crash barriers. It forced him to end the session without allowing his rivals (including Max Verstappen, who was wasting his time) to aim for the final quick lap.
“It’s embarrassing to lean against a wall. It doesn’t feel the same, but at the same time I’m incredibly happy ”, he said after getting his first pole position after seven he achieved in 2019 and the first for a Monegasque on the principality circuit since Louis achieved Chiron.it in 1936..
In any case, the crash opened a question mark about the status of Ferrari number 16 (mainly the gearbox) for competition on Sunday and whether any change of parts would lead to a penalty that would delay it on the starting grid. “I’m always unlucky here, so let’s wait”, the local opened the umbrella.
On Sunday morning, the Italian team reported that no defects were found in the box, so Leclerc could start from first place. However, the car could not even start racing, as a problem with the left drive shaft prevented it from doing so.
Charles Leclerc spoke with Prince Albert before his unsuccessful participation in the Monaco Grand Prix in 2021. (Photo: Sebastien Nogier / AFP)
“I’m sad, very sad, for myself and for the team that reviews everything. This track means something very special for me but I haven’t been able to finish a career yet. It’s hard to accept, but that’s how it is. I will have to overcome it and strive to improve in the future ”, lamented Monegasque on Sunday, May 23, where victory was finally in Verstappen’s hands.
Three hundred and seventy-one days after that failure and a week after the abandonment of Barcelona that brought him first place in the current championship, Leclerc will try again on the most attractive circuit on the calendar. “I am looking forward to going home next week and I hope we have good results,” he warned on Sunday. Superstitious Ferrari fans are already knocking on wood, hunting four-leaf clover or dusting horseshoe to end Monaco’s curse on its driver.
Source: Clarin