Charles Leclerc lasted barely two laps into the Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix. What was meant to be a shot at a third Monza win in front of the Tifosi instead ended with his Ferrari buried in the barriers at Parabolica, and Ferrari's home weekend already unravelling before it had properly begun.
The trouble began before the crash itself. At the first chicane, Leclerc and teammate Lewis Hamilton went wheel to wheel for position, with Hamilton eventually forced wide and dropping down the order to eighth. Asked about the incident afterwards, Leclerc was keen to play down talk of a rift with his teammate. "I don't really know who is forcing that narrative that we are one against the other," he said. "Honestly, on the radio there were way too many talks already." He did concede the move had gone further than it should have. "It's true though that we went too far. I think Lewis won that first corner. Then turn two, I tried to do the tightest line possible, but that was just not enough, and doing it there is not good."
Two laps in, defending fourth place from McLaren's Oscar Piastri, Leclerc's Ferrari stepped out of line at the exit of Parabolica. No contact with another car. The rear of the SF-26 came around, sending Leclerc across the gravel trap and into the outside barriers at high speed. He climbed from the car unaided, and medical staff checked him over as a precaution. "The neck was okay," he said when asked how he was feeling. "It was just the vision a little bit at first, the right eye was not showing me great vision, but now it's all good. That's the thing I was most worried about getting off the car." The race was red-flagged to allow repairs to the barrier.
Leclerc was cautious about pinning down a cause. "On the power I felt like the car was quite all right. I went off and went again, there was quite a bit of power then and I lost the car, but I've got to look at the data, I haven't checked it yet," he said. He returned to the same point when pressed further: "I think from lap one to lap two I had a bit of a difference in power delivery. We'll look into it, but I don't want to comment too much before checking the data and confirming it 100%."
Asked whether he might have been more cautious given the stage of the season and the demands of a home race, he was careful not to get ahead of the analysis. "With hindsight, of course. But again, before making any additional comments, I'd like to look at our side and confirm everything was okay."
Ferrari has yet to confirm a cause. Team principal, Frederic Vasseur, was seen talking with his race engineer afterwards, presumably discussing whether a sudden torque spike played a role. Separately, Leclerc's own account points toward the corner exit itself: his car appears to have run close to the drainage grating positioned at the edge of the track, which could have induced a sudden loss of grip.
The result leaves Ferrari empty-handed at their home circuit. Leclerc's championship hopes have taken another blow, and the team must quickly regroup to understand the issue and restore confidence ahead of the next round.
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