The two critical changes behind Leclerc finally breaking his Monaco F1 duck

“I realised I was struggling to see out of the Tunnel. I had tears in my eyes. And I was like, ‘F***, Charles, you cannot do that now, you still have two laps to finish’.”

As if the task of navigating a Formula 1 car through the legendary streets wasn’t hard enough, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc had much weighing heavy on his heart and his shoulders in the closing stages of 2024’s Monaco Grand Prix. At this stage, on lap 76 of 78 of his emotional first victory at home in Monte Carlo last weekend, Leclerc’s thoughts had drifted.

As he threaded his SF-24 between the barriers, his sixth F1 career win long since secure, he thought of his late father, Herve. Leclerc is nearly seven years on from Herve’s death, which came while he was dominating another Formula 2 weekend as a rapidly rising Ferrari junior.

“I feel like I don't only accomplish a dream of mine today, but also one of his,” Leclerc would later beautifully put it.

Then there was all his previous misfortune racing in Monaco. On the F1 support bill in 2017, safety car and suspension issues had wrecked his Formula 2 feature race waltz. There was his brake failure aboard his Sauber in his first Monaco Grand Prix a year later. And then the 2021 pole high and non-starting low. Ferrari’s strategy shambles when he’d led so commandingly in the rain a year later merely added to the apparent jinx.

When the home hero also shunted a Ferrari 312 in the Historique GP here two years ago, the ‘Leclerc Monaco Curse’ narrative pulsed strongly. Not that the man himself ever gave such simple hokum much thought.

“I never believed in the curse,” he said. “However, it was very frustrating to lose those wins. As a driver, you never really know when the next opportunity to win will be and especially when it's your home race and even more so when your home race is Monaco. It’s such a special track, such a difficult track and such a difficult weekend to master, and to do everything perfectly. Which we did.”

Leclerc at long last got to celebrate a home victory with Prince Albert II of Monaco on the podium

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Dreams dashed, fate – Leclerc seemingly had endured it all to finally secure his desired prize and pride. When that moment arrived, he had to navigate a series of distinct chapters and nail two critical changes to finally leap into the Monaco harbour in celebratory ecstasy. Here’s how it all came together for him.

Leclerc reaches “Q3 run two mode in FP1”

In many of Ferrari’s brightest showings amid Red Bull’s domination over the last two and a half years, its lead driver on such occasions has stolen a march right from the off in first practice.

Here, Leclerc kicked off the weekend with fifth in FP1. But his good work at this stage was masked by the run plan tactics of other squads.

"Last year, I think he was a bit nervous and from the beginning of the weekend he was a bit under tension. This year he was much more relaxed"
Fred Vasseur

In anticipation of rain that never arrived in FP2, Mercedes and McLaren gave its drivers orders to push on new softs in the opening one-hour session, while Leclerc rose to the fore in the second session as his rivals had to conduct their qualifying simulation runs on used softs to preserve their stock of the red-walled rubber for Saturday’s action.

From there, he stroked in a 0.197-second advantage in FP3, which he followed with pole ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri later that afternoon. Afterwards, Leclerc’s steely insistence that nothing was yet won, even with Monaco’s massive overtaking problem in mind, suggested Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur had worked on a new mental approach for Leclerc's hardest weekend of the year.

“Once you are in the car, you actually feel so good,” Leclerc said of a weekend where he’s pulled from regular events to signing autographs for his adoring public, among the bustle of an F1 weekend crammed into a harbour-side paddock.

Vasseur observed that his lead driver was less tense than in 2023 as he approached the weekend

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“Everything goes away. It's more the two hours in between FP3 to quali that there you start to feel a little bit the tension. That you know that you need to prepare everything, anticipate track conditions, and all of this. But, as soon as I put the helmet and then I'm in the car, I'm completely fine. I really don't feel anything anymore.”

Vasseur insisted post-race that there was “no guru” and “nothing special” Ferrari had devised to get Leclerc through the weekend any differently to previous years. But there was something Vasseur detected right back at the start of the event that would prove pivotal.

“Last year, I think he was a bit nervous and from the beginning of the weekend he was a bit under tension,” he said. “This year he was much more relaxed from the beginning.”

Across the Ferrari garage, Carlos Sainz could see “the same Charles that I've seen any other year in Monaco”, but he too could sense something was different in his team-mate’s initial offering this time around.

“The only thing I saw different is that he seemed to be in Q3 run two mode already in FP1,” Sainz explained.

Red Bull undone by another street setting

Sainz’s gains on the final Q3 runs meant he lined up behind Leclerc and Piastri. At the same time, Max Verstappen’s weekend was unravelling with his Ste Devote wallstrike. This capped a relatively awful qualifying session for Red Bull, as Sergio Perez’s customary 0.3s gap to Verstappen this time meant he started 16th after a Q1 exit.

The problem said Verstappen, was being unable to “touch any kerbs because it just upsets the car way too much” through Monaco’s second and third sectors. Even with Red Bull’s softest suspension settings, Verstappen still felt like he was “running without suspension”.

But further hampering the issue was how “the correlation between the simulator and the track doesn't work [and] in the simulator, we drive over the kerbs without any problems,” per Red Bull motorsport boss Helmut Marko.

Red Bull was never truly in the fight in Monaco, Verstappen qualifying a lowly sixth as the car proved sensitive on the kerbs

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Whatever Red Bull did to soften the RB20 from its set-up baseline, not only wasn’t it finding the recovery time sources at the team had insisted it would gain through fettling, should a 2023 Singapore-style humbling reoccur, but it couldn’t replicate what its drivers had been expecting from the their pre-event preparations.

Leclerc calmly navigates a shock qualifying swing

With F1’s usual dominator absent, Leclerc’s path to pole had appeared fairly straightforward. But two things knocked him from that perfect practice stride.

The first was “the issue in Q1 with the plastic bag in the front wing”, per Vasseur – referring to the massive piece of Mirabeau wall-wrapping advertising that got attached to Leclerc’s car in qualifying’s opening segment.

Aboard the McLaren Piastri had lost “20 downforce points, which in Monaco is about half a second” – per McLaren team boss Andrea Stella – with right-rear floor damage

“There we had to pit, we lost two or three laps in a row with this,” Vasseur added. “He was able to stay very calm because we could have been out in Q1.”

Instead, Leclerc went through in fifth, but was still then only fourth in Q2 with what he called “tricky” progress. This followed a precautionary post-FP3 engine change. And here came the second critical adjustment in securing his Monaco results breakthrough in 2024.

Between Q2 and Q3, Leclerc made “some modifications, especially with the front wing, the [steering wheel differential and brake balance settings] tools and my driving”. This transformed his handling when bouncing over kerbs, allowing a more predictable balance overall.

It never came back to his practice “best feeling of the weekend”, but it was enough to see off Piastri’s threat. And this was considerable. Had the McLaren driver hooked up his best sectors at the end in Q3, as Leclerc did, he would’ve taken the vital position at the head of the grid by 0.070s.

Leclerc escapes Ste Devote danger

When the lights went out at 3pm local time on Sunday, Leclerc squirmed out of his grid box but blasted ahead. The action came behind as he steamed through Ste Devote and began the climb up to Massenet in command.

After hooking up his best sectors in qualifying to secure all-important pole, Leclerc got the jump at the start as Piastri and Sainz came to blows behind

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Sainz “got a really good start and I had an opportunity going into Turn 1”, where he “arrived a bit long, with a lot of understeer in the car” at one point actually fractionally ahead of his one-off yellow rival.

“Then I understeered off a bit into him on the exit and we had the slightest of contacts,” Sainz added. “I didn't even feel or see the contact. But as soon as I exited Turn 1, I could feel the puncture.”

His left-front was sagging, while aboard the McLaren Piastri had lost “20 downforce points, which in Monaco is about half a second” – per McLaren team boss Andrea Stella – with right-rear floor damage.

But it was Sainz’s problem that stood out – first as sparks flew from his already ailing Ferrari through Massenet and then when he slid wide at the exit of Casino Square under little pressure from Lando Norris in the other McLaren. But already, another more concerning matter was unfolding.

Perez/Haas-fest removes strategy jeopardy for Ferrari

As the leaders plunged down to Mirabeau and Portier, they were seconds away from the race being neutralised. This was urgently needed given Perez had had an almighty shunt with the Haas pair, Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg.

The crash was instigated by Magnussen pulling a third of the way alongside Perez as they raced up Beau Rivage and then Perez jinking right going with the meandering track. The contact speared Perez right and into the barriers, and their wreckage shot across the track and into the innocent Hulkenberg on the inside.

Perez felt Magnussen was guilty of “some dangerous driving”. The Dane said, “he clearly wasn't leaving space” and “he just squeezed me into the wall”. The stewards decreed it was a racing incident not even worth of additional investigation – as they later did with the Sainz/Piastri Ste Devote clash.

When the red flags flew, Leclerc led the pack back to the pits. And here his race received a major boost.

The enormous crash involving Perez and the two Haas drivers resulted in a red flag that allowed the leaders to switch to hards they could run to the end

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

The grid’s top four had set off on the medium tyres. Pirelli predicted this as the standard start tyre, with a move to the hards in a one-stopper the only strategy requirement with no rain arriving, no tyre degradation on the smooth surface and the softs no good long-term.

Behind, George Russell, Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton had started on the contra-strategy in running hards from the off in a bid to gain from a mid-race safety car. This is exactly what Vasseur feared.

But the stoppage wrecked any chance of that. Instead, Leclerc, Piastri, Sainz and Norris could be switched to the hards in the pitlane and then run to finish. Russell, Verstappen and Hamilton by regulation could only go to the mediums and attempt to do the same with less durable rubber, even though a 75-lap stint on the yellow-walled compound was entirely feasible here.

Leclerc escapes Ste Devote danger again, plus Piastri’s Portier ponder

McLaren had been able to partially repair Piastri’s damaged floor and replace his right-sidepod under the 40-minute stoppage. This meant he faced just a 10-point downforce loss to cope with for the rest of the race.

With Leclerc 1.0s clear at the end the restart tour, lap three, the typical Monaco pace-modulating exercise could play out

But, instead of Norris providing McLaren with a two-pronged attack against Leclerc, Sainz was able to take the restart back in third. This was despite dropping to 16th and having to reverse away from the Casino Square barriers pre-red flags flying.

Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu had been jumped by the qualifying-disqualified Haas cars off the line and so was caught behind the crash. He then delicately picked his way by the wreckage and medical car. The FIA therefore opted to take the restart order from the original grid, as Zhou hadn’t passed the sector one timing beam when the race was neutralised.

At the standing restart, Leclerc was under even less pressure this time off the line and the leading four merged in turn through Ste Devote. Now, with Leclerc 1.0s clear at the end the restart tour, lap three, the typical Monaco pace-modulating exercise could play out. Albeit with the race shorn of strategic variance or pitstop service jeopardy a la 2022 for the leaders.

When racing resumed, Piastri's car still had legacy damage and Leclerc could simply control proceedings - although that didn't stop Piastri from trying

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Leclerc and co started off lapping in the 1m22s and 1m21s – some 11-12s slower than they’d gone in Q3. They gradually eased their way to the 1m19s, at which point Piastri “showed my hand” on the 19th tour.

“I had an attempt into Turn 8 [Portier],” he added. “We were going pretty slow. I think at one point we were going slower than Formula 2 [only for the first lap post-restart in Leclerc’s case]. When you're going that slow, you've got a fair few options.

“But I kind of knew that once I showed where I was going to try and overtake, that he would probably be wise to it from there. He reacted just quick enough. After that point I knew I was going to be very limited on options…”

Ferrari manages its tyre and go-slow gaps queries

For 15 of the first 16 laps post-restart, Piastri was able to stay in DRS range of the leader – Leclerc’s biggest lead through this stage a temporary 1.1s. Their pace continued to fall to the 1m18s bracket.

The graining phase on both compounds predicted pre-race by most squads given what they’d seen in FP2, where Sainz’s long run pace had stood out when he wasn’t backing off in traffic, had to be “managed properly” – per Pirelli motorsport boss, Mario Isola. But it never seemed to unduly impact any of the frontrunners.

At this stage, the front pack was detached from the medium-shod chasers. Mercedes was clear that Russell had to run at an even more rigid pace higher up the low 1m20s brackets as he was “tootling” around in fifth.

But as Russell was falling away from Leclerc at a 0.6s rate at this stage, he would soon be at the critical 20s pitstop time loss gap even to Norris ahead. Had there been a safety car or VSC, Norris could have taken a free stop from lap 20.

This caused Ferrari a problem. If it allowed the gap to build enough, Norris would be able to fit a much younger set of tyres and potentially use the life offset advantage to overcome the overtaking issue. The grip punch of new tyres through the Tunnel from Portier versus ancient hards, after all, was demonstrated in Lance Stroll’s pass on Zhou there with new softs much later.

Ensuring he didn't pull too far clear of the lead medium-shod runner, Russell, was an important consideration for Leclerc to deny Norris a chance at an undercut pitstop

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

And so, Ferrari ordered its drivers to slow down and try to avoid this playing out. On lap 21, Leclerc’s pace stabilised in the mid-1m18s for the next seven tours, after which he actually backed off to the 1m19s for three of the next four laps.

Vasseur felt for Sainz in third “it was even more difficult because we asked him to stay not too far away of Piastri to cover a potential safety car but to also to slow down Norris for Russell”.

On lap 39, back down to the low 1m18s and all the leaders through their graining phases, Ferrari asked Leclerc to slow again. He did back off to the 1m19s over the next three tours, but wasn’t keen as “what I didn't want is that Oscar [might] start to push straight away and then you don't have references”.

"Towards the end, a combination of trying to keep the pace of the race reasonably quick, plus the floor, I just struggled a little bit"
Oscar Piastri

“I was going so slow in the middle of the race that if you start to push, then you don't really know where to brake and that's where mistakes can happen,” he explained of his confused radio calls here.

The gap between Russell and Norris reached 20.6s by lap 55, but here the Mercedes driver finally lifted his pace to match the leaders now in the 1m17s. Russell had been near metronomic in the 1m18s for the previous 20 laps, and so McLaren’s chance was gone. It had opted against stopping Norris on lap 55 because “it would have been still a bit of a risk”, per Stella.

“Because as soon as the pitstop was just one second slower than normal we could have ended up behind a Mercedes and then it was gone,” he added. “Even if you were three seconds faster, there was no way to overtake.”

Piastri’s floor damage finally comes to bear

At lap 66, Leclerc took his pace from the 1m16s into the 1m15s. In the 20 laps since they’d started lapping the rear of the pack, Leclerc had been out of what little DRS threat there was here. But now he was able to snap Piastri’s pursuit.

“Towards the end, a combination of trying to keep the pace of the race reasonably quick, plus the floor, I just struggled a little bit,” Piastri said of why Leclerc’s victory margin expanded to 7.2s by the chequered flag.

Piastri struggled to stay close to Leclerc in the closing stages and switched his attention to holding back Sainz

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Here, Sainz was just 0.4s back in third and Norris behind 4.7s ahead of Russell (who’d generally lapped faster than Leclerc even with the same aged mediums compared to hards over the race’s final third) and the fruitlessly two-stopping Verstappen and Hamilton.

“But overall, pretty happy with it,” Piastri concluded. “The last 10 laps or so, [with the overtaking challenge as Sainz bore down behind] I was pretty happy we were in Monaco.”

So was Leclerc. The yachts blared horns, royalty wept and he took Vasseur with him for the harbour dip. His father’s dream fulfilled, finally, Leclerc was a home winner at F1’s street party race.

Leclerc's dream was finally realised in 2024

Photo by: Ferrari