Charles Leclerc Fumes as Ferrari Brakes “Borderline Dangerous” After Monaco GP Crash
Charles Leclerc crashed out of his home race at Monaco after a safety car restart, and his explanation was about as uncomfortable as Ferrari‘s weekend deserved. Asked about track surface damage as a possible factor, he didn’t take the invitation.
“Brakes,” he said flatly. Then, after pressing from Sky Sports F1, he expanded into something more damning than a one-word answer ever could have been.
“It doesn’t help to have asphalt that is coming off, but the data speaks for itself. I don’t know how much detail I can go into. It’s extremely frustrating.
“I think I’ve always been very honest, and no matter how many mistakes I make, I would hate to look at myself in the mirror and see myself finding excuses when I make a mistake. That’s why I’m always bluntly honest whenever I’m in front of cameras, but I’m not going to take any of it today.
“It’s not even braking. I touched the brakes, and there’s just something with those brakes. On the front, it braked a lot more than what I thought, and in the rear, it had no deceleration at all. It’s like I had no rear brakes at all. That’s what I’m dealing with for two races now.
“We’ve had some differences of brakes between the cars, but I don’t think it’s a disadvantage for me at all. But here and in Montreal, with cold tire temperatures, the inconsistency and the tires being a lot more sensitive because you are on the limit of those tires, have just been an absolute nightmare. I’m weighing my words. I don’t have many words. Today, I look like an idiot. When you look like an idiot for a mistake of yours, it’s fine, but this is borderline dangerous.”
A Problem Ferrari Has Known About for Two Races
Leclerc had been dealing with severe brake inconsistency across the entire Monaco weekend, a problem he traced back explicitly to the Canadian Grand Prix.
He had flagged brake troubles to the media as far back as Friday practice, having already struggled in the same area in Canada.
Throughout every session in Monte Carlo, that discomfort generated significant complaints over the radio.
Compounding the brake issue was what Leclerc described as “digital” tyre behaviour – grip arriving and disappearing in a binary, unpredictable manner rather than building or fading progressively, making it nearly impossible to judge corner entry.
Leclerc had topped Q1 in qualifying and briefly held provisional pole before the brake issues became prominent enough to cost him in Q3.
He aborted his first Q3 run after going wide at Massenet, then put in a competitive second effort, only for his final lap to end at Tabac with a brush of the wall and a wrecked car.
Ferrari is targeting the Barcelona race as the debut point for a broader upgrade package, which the team hopes will address the underlying issues rather than just paper over them.
