The curse continues to haunt Charles Leclerc

After a brake failure, a flat tire, a global pandemic, an engine failure during the warm-up lap, and strategic mistakes, it was thought that nothing else could happen to Charles Leclerc in Monaco. We were wrong. Clearly still cursed, the Scuderia driver received a three-place grid penalty after being found guilty of impeding Lando Norris during qualifying. He thus started in sixth position on Sunday, a position he held until the end.

Rather absent during the race, the arrival of rain did not benefit him. He started with hard tires, but stopped to put on medium tires too early in the hope that the impending rain would trigger a Safety Car. « When it started raining, we could have switched to intermediates earlier, but we decided not to do so because there were still many cars on slicks and so we decided to wait in the hope of a safety car, which happens 90% of the time under these conditions here. »

A safety car that never arrived

Lost bet. The rain continues to intensify but there is still no sign of the safety car. Ferrari finally brings in its two drivers to switch to intermediates, but it is already too late. Ocon and the Mercedes made a smart move by pitting first and are already back on track. Charles Leclerc rejoins the race in sixth position and finishes the race as he started, without ever being able to join the battle for the podium. « In the end, we finish in the same position as we started. There wasn’t much more to hope for starting in 6th. We had a great qualifying yesterday. Unfortunately, that’s how it goes. It hasn’t been working out here for a few years now. We must not give up, not hang our heads. We’ll start again next year and see if it works out, » he confides to Canal+.