The Monegasque driver ended his home Grand Prix in the barriers at the final corner after a brake problem became impossible to manage following the Safety Car period. It was an issue that had already surfaced earlier in the season and one that had also troubled him in Canada. From the Spanish Grand Prix onwards, Charles Leclerc will follow the path already taken by Lewis Hamilton and switch to a different brake package.
Heading into the weekend, Charles Leclerc had been widely considered the favourite around the streets of the Principality, a circuit that has often felt like a second home for the Ferrari driver. Instead, Monaco turned into a weekend to forget, with Ferrari unable to display the level of dominance many had anticipated and with Charles Leclerc once again struggling with brake issues that had already appeared in previous races.
Those problems gradually eroded his confidence behind the wheel, creating an imbalance between the front and rear axles. The inconsistency became particularly noticeable whenever he was unable to drive continuously at racing speed, producing unpredictable behaviour from one lap to the next and forcing him to constantly rethink his braking points. Those difficulties accumulated throughout the race and ultimately led to his retirement just a handful of laps from the finish.
Before the restart, Charles Leclerc went straight on and hit the barriers. In his view, the accident was unavoidable, even though he insisted he had not applied excessive force to the brake pedal.
“I’m extremely disappointed, sad and angry. It’s a mix of negative emotions. I don’t know how much detail I can go into. But it’s not acceptable and the problems I experienced with my brakes… it’s not that it’s difficult, it’s simply that it becomes impossible at this point,” Charles Leclerc said.
There had been some speculation that the track surface, which was beginning to break up and collect debris on the left-front tyre, may have contributed to the incident. However, Charles Leclerc was adamant that the real cause was purely brake-related.
“I wouldn’t blame the track, even if that certainly doesn’t help. When the brakes were working, even four or five laps earlier, I was using that part of the track.
“There is definitely a little less grip there, but it helped me open up the corner. That was fine, even if it was a bit more slippery. I’m not someone who hides behind excuses. More than once I’ve taken responsibility even when there were small things that weren’t ideal, but that’s part of our sport,” Charles Leclerc commented after the race.
The Ferrari driver stressed that, after reviewing the data, there was nothing he could have done differently to avoid the crash.
“Today, even looking back at the data, I could do absolutely nothing. When you touch the brake, there’s a certain pressure… it’s not even really braking. You put your foot on the pedal and it’s as if the rear brakes aren’t there. The front brakes suddenly give you twice the braking torque compared to other laps. Just because they aren’t in the right temperature window, it’s not good enough. Actually, it’s beyond not being good enough. It reaches the point where it becomes dangerous.”
Going into greater detail, Charles Leclerc explained exactly what had happened. Because of the temperature imbalance within the braking system, it felt as though three of the car’s four brakes were no longer functioning as intended.
As long as the drivers are circulating continuously at racing speed, it becomes easier to maintain brake temperatures within the correct operating window. However, once the pace drops significantly, as it does behind a Safety Car, managing those temperatures becomes much more complicated.
Normally, drivers try to adjust the brake balance and use various techniques to generate additional heat. However, at Monaco, where average speeds are low and there are no long straights, it becomes extremely difficult to restore the brakes to the required temperature before the restart. According to Charles Leclerc, this was the key factor behind his accident.
“As long as we were running continuously, everything was a little inconsistent, but those major problems weren’t there. The real issue started when the Safety Car came out. As soon as the Safety Car was deployed, three of my four brakes stopped working. And I was never able to get them working again. Nothing worked anymore,” Charles Leclerc explained, suggesting that wear may have played a role.
“I tried many different actions inside the car to improve the situation, but the only solution would have been not to brake at the final corner… and then I would have ended up in the wall at Turn 1. There was no way to complete a lap, no possible solution. We’ll analyse everything. I don’t know if it was a wear-related issue; it happens quite often here.”
The Ferrari driver then provided an even more striking description of the problem.
“Three of the four brakes weren’t working. The front-left brake was working properly, the front-right was operating at about half efficiency, while both rear brakes weren’t working at all. And when I say not at all, I mean the data showed absolutely no deceleration. It was as if, I don’t know, the calipers weren’t even fitted to the car.”
Charles Leclerc also revealed that a solution already exists and that he plans to adopt it starting from the Spanish Grand Prix, following the same route Lewis Hamilton took three races ago.
Interestingly, that solution had already been available to Charles Leclerc this weekend. However, he deliberately chose to continue with a brake package he already knew well in order to avoid introducing additional variables during such an important Monaco weekend.
“I didn’t want to change this weekend and maybe that’s partly my fault. I thought that on a track like Monaco it was the right decision to start with brakes I already knew. But considering the problems I had to deal with and the fact there was no solution on a circuit like this…”
Without the brake failure, Charles Leclerc appeared set to secure third place and potentially even challenge for second. That opportunity became more complicated when Ferrari decided to bring him into the pits for softer tyres while Lewis Hamilton still had to serve a five-second penalty.
It was a situation that the Monegasque driver struggled to understand at the time, expressing his frustration over team radio. However, his main concern was actually the possibility of receiving a penalty himself for slowing excessively in the pit lane.
“I was very stressed about having to slow down in the pit lane because Race Control had been very clear that we couldn’t do that. Since I was too close to Lewis, who still had a five-second penalty to serve, if I had slowed down too much in the pit lane I would have been the one receiving a penalty.
“Besides that, the tyres were fine. But in the end, that’s just a detail and it wouldn’t have changed anything today.”
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