Ferrari did its best to complete the repairs, only for an issue to emerge when the car was fired up, meaning Leclerc could not even start the race. In a year dominated by Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, he pulled off a shock pole on Saturday, but crashed on his final lap. Leclerc didn’t even get that far when F1 returned to Monaco in 2021. His F1 debut in 2018 ended in a late retirement when a brake failure caused him to crash, while hopes of winning his first Monaco with Ferrari in 2019 effectively ended on Saturday when a team strategy mistake led to his elimination in Q1. In the 2017 Formula 2 races, Leclerc retired both times around due to issues with his car. He knows the streets well - part of the track was on his bus route to school as a kid - but things have never quite clicked for the dream result he so craves. It was only the latest in a long line of setbacks Leclerc has faced in Monaco. They served him a three-place grid penalty that dropped him to sixth, effectively ending any dream of a first home podium on a track that makes fighting through the field nigh impossible. The stewards looked dimly on the incident, acknowledging that while Leclerc could not have got out of the way, Ferrari should have done more to keep him updated. Ferrari had not informed Leclerc that Norris was approaching until it was too late. The narrow track meant Leclerc had nowhere to go, forcing Norris to back off and abandon his lap. In the final stage of qualifying, Leclerc was going slow through the tunnel as McLaren’s Lando Norris approached on a hot lap. Follow live coverage of the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend.It wasn’t pole, but a first podium on home soil was within sight. Leclerc did the best he could to rescue third place on the grid in qualifying, even while “struggling like crazy” with a car that kept bottoming out against the track surface.

Ferrari leclerc