Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton pick apart a nightmare Monza for Ferrari

Credit: Formula One

Charles Leclerc's Italian Grand Prix lasted all of two laps before it ended in the tyre barriers at Parabolica, and by the time the red flag flew over Monza he already had two separate incidents to account for.

The trouble started before the field had even completed lap one. Leclerc had started third after Oscar Piastri's grid penalty in qualifying promoted both Ferraris up the order, and he wasted no time pushing for more, running side by side with teammate Lewis Hamilton into the first chicane. The pair came together closely enough that Hamilton dropped down the order as a result.

Leclerc later admitted things had got tight between the two Ferraris. "With Lewis it was way too close into Turn 1 and unfortunately in Turn 2 then I don't know if we had contact or whatsoever," he said. "I was quite a lot on the inside kerb and tried to make the corner which I didn't do it tight enough."

He said he had only seen the moment play out in his mirrors afterwards, adding that it was "never what you want between two cars of the same team." The FIA noted the clash but chose not to pursue any further investigation, and Leclerc pressed on, briefly running as high as second before Pierre Gasly's Alpine reclaimed the place.

Hamilton, asked about the same moment afterwards, had little appetite to dwell on it. "Well, I ended up like 10th or something, so there's not really much to say about it, really," he said, though a strong recovery through the field would in fact leave him a good deal higher than that by the finish.

That recovery lasted only until the end of lap two. Fighting for position at the exit of Parabolica, Leclerc's Ferrari snapped sideways and speared into the barrier at speed, ending his race on the spot and bringing out the red flag with the leading pack barely two laps old.

Slow-motion replays of the accident point to Leclerc's rear tyre clipping the drain cover on the exit kerb, a detail that would explain how abruptly the car let go beneath him. Leclerc's own explanation centred on the throttle rather than the kerb. "For the crash itself I went on throttle. On the first lap it felt kind of weird, I had to go back off and on throttle," he said. "On that second lap I tried to do the same thing but I don't know, it just felt a little bit weird so we'll look into it."

The location will sting in particular. Leclerc came down at almost the same spot in 2020, when his Ferrari also speared into the barrier on the exit of Parabolica during that year's Italian Grand Prix weekend. Six years on, the corner has claimed him again, this time in the race itself, and on a weekend Ferrari had hoped would deliver a result to match the passion of the tifosi packed into the grandstands.

Leclerc's afternoon ended there. He did not take part when the field lined up for the restart, having climbed out of the wreck unaided and gone straight to the medical centre for evaluation. The FIA gave him a clean bill of health, but he later admitted the impact had briefly affected him.

"It was just my vision a little bit at first, the right eye was not showing me great vision, but now it's all good," he said, adding that he expected a few further precautionary checks before next weekend's Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid, the kind of follow-up standard under F1's concussion protocol after a heavy shunt.

Hamilton, left to carry Ferrari's race alone, found his own reasons to be frustrated. He briefly ran as high as third before fading in the closing stints, ultimately finishing sixth as the Mercedes pair swept past. "Yeah, a bit devastating. Tough one, tough one to swallow. Lost a lot of points and ultimately couldn't keep the Mercedes engine behind. They were just out and out quicker," he said.

"And I think we probably chose the wrong tyre. Whether that really would have made much difference, probably maybe we'd have been able to hold on to them a little bit longer, but they just kept flying past us. So they were just quicker." Ferrari sent Hamilton out on medium tyres for the restart while most of the field switched to hards, a call that looked increasingly costly as his rubber wore thin late on.

Whatever answers Ferrari find in the data, Leclerc's own account suggests the warning signs were already there a lap before it went wrong.