Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Monaco, 2021

“Difficult to take” not starting home race after taking pole – Leclerc

2021 Monaco Grand Prix

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A dejected Charles Leclerc admitted it was hard to accept the fact he was unable to start the Monaco Grand Prix following a problem with his car’s driveshaft.

The Ferrari driver crashed heavily at the end of qualifying yesterday, heavily damaging the right-hand side of his car. Following repairs and a close inspection of his gearbox, Ferrari gave his car the all-clear.

However as he drove to the grid before the start of the race, Leclerc reported a problem with his car. He returned to the car where Ferrari diagnosed a left driveshaft problem which they could not fix before the start of the race.

“As soon as I felt the issue I said I felt there was a problem with the gearbox,” said Leclerc. “But actually it was not coming from the gearbox it seems. It seems that it’s something else so we need to check still.”

He believes his retirement is a legacy of his crash. “Obviously I’m pretty sure it’s correlated with my crash yesterday but we will try and understand from where it’s coming exactly,” he said.

“Apparently it’s not coming from the gearbox, it’s more coming from the rear-left of the car. Whether it’s correlated with the crash or not this we’ll have to see with investigations after the race but it’s still early days.”

Despite his latest disappointment in his home race, Leclerc said he felt sorry for his crew following their efforts to repair his car.

“In the garage it was very, very difficult to feel okay,” he said. “But I guess now I’m getting used to this feeling here, unfortunately. I’ve never finished a race here. This year I don’t get to start it starting from pole so it’s a difficult one to take.

“But I also feel for the team, to be honest. The mechanics have done such a hard job yesterday to try and check everything and the mechanics were finally happy this morning to see that everything seems fine, all the parts were fine. And then this happened. So it’s a shame for everyone.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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15 comments on ““Difficult to take” not starting home race after taking pole – Leclerc”

  1. Well at least he was punished for throwing his car into the wall, as it should be. I don’t have as much sympathy for him as many do. It was the result of his own mistake (unlike Bottas, for example.)

    1. Agree, fair enough.

    2. But Ferrari should have done a thorough check so that atleast he could have participated in race . This is his first mistake this year previous year by this time the had made many mistakes . So I see an improvement in him still compared to last year

  2. I’m confused by the sympathy today, don’t put the car in the barriers basically. Agree with Tristan.

  3. abananasplitz
    23rd May 2021, 16:09

    Agreed if you bin it you wont win it.

  4. Leclerc is a fast driver, but he needs to calm down a tad just like Verstappen did in 2018. He’s crashing too often. Yesterday, Italy and Austria last year, Germany and Azerbaijan the year before. The list is starting to get too long for a driver leading the Ferrari team.

    1. leclerc is and will always be stupid

      1. That was magnussen I think, who leclerc was talking about.

  5. I may be going defensive here but nothing takes away his fastest lap. It was a mistake that none else made this year which turned out to be really costly but we don’t know who made the call not to fix things.
    You want to do everything that you start on pole and from my point of view they made the right call.

    1. Agree, absolutely, the ideal situation in my opinion (I know that’s not how rules are, but this is how I would have it) would’ve been adding some 3-4 mins to the timer so that drivers could get a chance to beat his time that they were taken away, and then imo ferrari took the right decision, was unlucky they found out this late about the gearbox problem, but I’d have also gambled, would’ve been a more interesting race and a good chance to win, I saw 0 overtakes.

  6. Bruno Verrari
    23rd May 2021, 17:10

    Remember Nico’s unpunished trick?
    With that, he managed to beat Mewis yellow and blue three times IN A ROW in the same car!
    Ouch.
    Ouch!

  7. It’s interesting that Ferrari say it’s the left driveshaft at fault when it was the right side that took the whack on the barrier. Can only guess either bouncing over the kerb did it or the shock on the right went through the diff and somehow cracked the left side.

  8. In the end, this was the result of his own mistake, amplified by the team not taking the gearbox apart (breaking the seal and opening it up would have meant they would likely have found the issue earlier. But it would have been a grid drop).

    A bit of a heartbreak moment. Then again, had he not binned it, he might not have been on pole anyway since Sainz, Bottas and especially Verstappen had all been on a very good lap when it got red flagged by the accident.

    1. I think his first lap was good enough for p3 he should have aborted second run in q3 and saved the car also Ferraris fault for not checking the whole car

    2. Interesting to speculate what would’ve happened, imo bottas didn’t have enough pace to threaten pole, but certainly could’ve beaten the first lap time verstappen and sainz made, however sainz was 70 thousands ahead of leclerc before the last sector, so would’ve further improved and probably got pole, verstappen was also looking good, but it was only the first sector, I could see something like: sainz, leclerc, verstappen, or verstappen, sainz, leclerc, or even sainz, verstappen, leclerc, in any case ferrari would’ve been better off.

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