Three of four brakes reportedly failed after the safety car period—Leclerc describes the situation as an absolute nightmare
Charles Leclerc cited a serious brake problem as the cause of his crash following his retirement from the Monaco Grand Prix. The Ferrari driver crashed in the Antony Noghes curve shortly before the restart following a safety car phase, while running in third place. Lance Stroll had already retired there just a few minutes earlier.
Immediately after the impact, Leclerc made it clear over the radio that he did not consider himself at fault. Later, he explained that a technical defect had effectively robbed him of any chance to slow the car down properly.
“I’m certainly not going to take the blame for this,” Leclerc had already stated over the radio during the race. After the Grand Prix, he described the extent of the problem in more detail: “Out of four brakes, three weren’t working. And in a Formula 1 car, that’s never a good thing.”
Braking system nearly completely failed
According to Leclerc, only the front-left brake was working normally. The front-right brake was only partially functional, while both rear brakes had completely failed.
“The left front brake worked well, the right front brake only partially, and the two rear brakes didn’t work at all,” the Monegasque driver reported. “And when I say not at all, I mean that there was absolutely no deceleration visible in the data. It was as if the brake calipers weren’t even on the car.”
The Ferrari driver described the situation as a “nightmare,” but also explained that the team had already identified a solution. “The only thing I can say is that we already have the solution in-house. Starting with the next race, I’ll switch to Lewis’s configuration, which will hopefully be a step forward,” said Leclerc
Problem occurred after first safety car phase
According to the Ferrari driver, the problem occurred immediately after the safety car phase and subsequently worsened. He tried various settings while driving to improve the situation, but without success.
The only theoretical option left to him was to not brake at all in the final corner. However, this would have inevitably led to a crash in the first corner. “I tried a lot of things in the car to fix the problem. There was simply no solution,” Leclerc continued.
Material fatigue as the cause of the failure?
Ferrari is still investigating the exact cause of the problem. However, the Monegasque driver suspects that the defect may be related to brake wear, which is traditionally a challenge on the tight Monaco street circuit.
“I don’t know if it was a wear issue. That’s often a problem here. I don’t know exactly what it was, but there was clearly a problem,” he says. When asked if he had ever experienced a similar situation before, Leclerc replied: “No, not to this extent. Of course, it’s sometimes a bit difficult, but this time it was simply impossible to drive through a corner.”
Ferrari sees cause confirmed by data
According to the Ferrari driver, Team Principal Fred Vasseur and Ferrari’s Deputy Team Principal Jerome d’Ambrosio have already analyzed the data and reached the same conclusion.
Despite the disappointing race, the Ferrari driver sees at least one positive aspect: looking ahead to the upcoming race weekend at the Circuit de Barcelona, he hopes that the planned change to the brake configuration will prevent similar problems in the future.
Leclerc is currently in fourth place in the drivers’ standings with 70 points, while teammate Lewis Hamilton has moved up to second place overall with 90 points following his second-place finish in Monaco.