The signs that suggest Leclerc will come back stronger from another Monaco blow

"I think it's the most disappointing moment in my whole career because of being at Monaco. The weekend really was perfect until then."

Charles Leclerc spoke those words to Autosport in his home city, but he didn’t say them last weekend. This was four years ago, when his sensational charge to the 2017 Formula 2 title (remember, before him no rookie had won that category since Nico Hulkenberg in 2009, prior to the Pirelli era) was just getting going.

He’d dominated on his home streets – taking pole and leading the feature race. But he was then unlucky with the timing of the safety car intervention following a crash between Robert Visoiu and Louis Deletraz at Mirabeau, which cost him the lead. A suspension problem picked up at his pitstop put him out. The next day, a collision with Norman Nato at Rascasse ultimately led to another DNF and his run of home-racing misery was set in action.

In 2018, then a Sauber Formula 1 rookie, he smashed into the back of Brendon Hartley’s Toro Rosso due to a brake problem exiting the tunnel, while a year later as Ferrari’s new star he was unfortunate to get knocked out in Q1, then tagged Hulkenberg at Rascasse and ruined his race. Last weekend’s Q3 crash and subsequent DNS brings us up to date.

Charles Leclerc tangles with Nico Hulkenberg in Monaco in 2019

Photo by: Motorsport Images

What threads through all these incidents is Leclerc’s pace and resilience. It’s also worth remembering that just a few weeks after his Monaco F2 disappointment, he won both races in Baku on the road (later losing the sprint race to a contentious yellow flag penalty) just days after his father’s death. This is a very tough character.

But what Leclerc must now be wrestling with is the process of moving on from losing Ferrari’s best chance to win a grand prix since 2019. As a rival team noted to Autosport over the weekend in the principality, the SF21 has been tracked displaying strong apex speed at every race so far this season, but only in Monaco was its continuing power deficit taken out of the equation.

Ferrari being in the hunt for Monaco success added an element F1 has been missing since it dropped out of ‘Class A’ following its controversial ‘settlement’ with the FIA over its pre-2020 engine.

We appreciate this is being somewhat greedy considering Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton and their Red Bull and Mercedes squads are engaging in a title battle that has so far had all the hallmarks of an all-time F1 classic and is getting spicier with every passing round, but the championship can never really have enough top drivers and cars in the hunt.

That, plus the enormous risk of doing exactly the damage he did (Ferrari has now confirmed the exact reason Leclerc could only manage a solitary pre-race lap was because of a broken left driveshaft hub that was a result of the Q3 shunt), blows a hole in any suggestion Leclerc crashed on purpose. In the age of cowardly social media cynicism, sure, it’s plausible, but it’s just not on.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Leclerc was absolutely guilty of making a small misjudgement that had enormous consequences, and he probably was aware that his track position meant he could afford to risk just that bit more to make up for time lost early in his final lap.

Perhaps the track evolution, much less of a factor than it had been in Thursday practice because of the cooler conditions on Saturday, caught him out. The car simply looked like it gripped better and took him to the apex earlier than he was expecting.

Leclerc will have to examine the precise circumstances of what went wrong last weekend and incorporate the lessons into his thrilling qualifying approach. He’ll be an even better driver because of it

But you can be sure that Leclerc must and will own this error.

It was notable that in the aftermath of the accident his team radio did not feature any of the remarkable self-abuse Leclerc has previously spouted after making costly mistakes (such as his pole-costing Baku 2019 Q2 crash and his podium-losing slip at the final corners in Turkey last year).

Perhaps this is a facet of Leclerc’s game he has vowed to move on from, which will be worth asking him next time out in Azerbaijan. After all, Verstappen doesn’t feel the need to so publicly admit to mistakes in F1’s ruthless environment… But then, Leclerc was soon admitting to feeling “quite shit” about the situation given the circumstances that could and did play out as a result.

Marshals assist Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF21, after he crashes out of qualifying

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

But he’s historically displayed a positive knack for self-improvement he can rely on again in 2021.

After making several lap one errors in 2020 as he sought to overcome Ferrari’s massive pace deficit – including the Styrian GP debacle where he wiped out former team-mate Sebastian Vettel – he vowed to “choose my fights a little bit better” this year.

So far, he has done so – proving that did not mean he still wouldn’t go for open goals against faster cars by battling Valtteri Bottas in Bahrain, and then putting the move of the Spanish GP on the same rival at that race’s third corner.

Leclerc has even turned around what was rightly perceived as a weakness for not delivering when it matters most in qualifying in 2018. Now, he’s one of F1’s best against the clock and his confident approach has brought him pole at two street tracks, even if the most-recent came in such bizarre circumstances.

"I went for it at the end,” he said after qualifying last weekend. “It’s one of my strengths sometimes and it’s why sometimes I am good in qualifying. It’s also why I’ve done this mistake. Whether this will make me change the approach for all the races to come, no, because at the end I had to go for it.”

But Leclerc will have to examine the precise circumstances of what went wrong last weekend and incorporate the lessons into his thrilling qualifying approach. He’ll be an even better driver because of it.

On his Ferrari squad, it must be said that it appears to be improving considerably of late. The Monaco layout helped but, as Carlos Sainz Jr said after finishing second behind Verstappen in the race, “we nailed the set-up” and could “switch on the tyres with every compound”. But the long straights in Baku next time out present a big hurdle…

Having Ferrari in the hunt at the front of the grid last weekend, with a home hero driver on song created a brilliant narrative. It ended up being the latest tough tale written on his local streets, but Leclerc’s past record suggests the coming chapter of his story will yet be glorious.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF21

Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images