Charles Leclerc's Frustrating Exit at the Italian Grand Prix
Charles Leclerc cut a frustrated figure after a brutal early exit from the Italian Grand Prix, as he tried to unpick both his fierce first-corner fight with team mate Lewis Hamilton and the crash that ended his race just one lap later.
The Ferrari pair had lined up together on the second row, Leclerc in P3 with Hamilton alongside in P4, and the script for a dream afternoon in front of the Tifosi lasted all of a few hundred metres.
As the lights went out, both scarlet cars launched hard and dived into Turn 1 almost as one. Leclerc held the inside, Hamilton hung on around the outside, and by the time they flicked into the second part of the chicane the margin for error had vanished. Hamilton bounced across the gravel and tumbled down the order, immediately telling the team over the radio that he felt he had been pushed off.
Leclerc, speaking afterwards, didn’t hide from the awkwardness of that opening exchange.
“With Lewis it was way too close into Turn 1 and unfortunately in Turn 2 – I don't know if we had contact or whatsoever,” he said. He explained that he was “quite a lot on the inside curve” as he tried to make the corner, only realising how it had unfolded from his mirrors. For him, that image said enough: “Which is never what you want between two cars, between two cars of the same team.”
The crowd barely had time to digest that flashpoint before the afternoon took a darker turn for Ferrari’s home hero.
On Lap 2, charging through Parabolica, Leclerc ran wide and speared into the barriers, his Ferrari snapping out of control and slamming out of the race. The grandstands fell silent for a moment before relief spread that he was able to climb out unhurt. The car, and his hopes, were done.
Leclerc later tried to describe what he had felt in those brief, chaotic moments before the crash.
“Then for the crash itself, I went on throttle – on the first lap it felt kind of weird, I had to go back off and on throttle,” he explained. He attempted to repeat the same approach a lap later, but the sensation didn’t improve. “On that second lap, I tried to do the same thing but, I don't know, it just felt a little bit weird, so we'll look into it.”
No bold technical theories. No excuses. Just a driver clearly unsettled by something in the car’s behaviour and a team with a fresh data mystery to solve, all under the unforgiving spotlight of Monza.
