Charles Leclerc has urged Ferrari to investigate the brakes on his SF-26 after suffering an agonising DNF at the 2026 Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix.
Leclerc crashed out of his home race during the Safety Car restart on lap 67 of 78, on Sunday.
The Monegasque was running as high as second during the race and was slotted behind Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton in third coming out of La Rascasse.
Inexplicably, however, Leclerc’s SF-26 just veered straight into the barriers – a carbon copy of Lance Stroll’s crash at the same corner that brought out the Safety Car.
Reflecting back on the incident, the Ferrari driver refused to “take the blame” and pointed out how three out of his four brakes had failed on him.
“Well, out of the four brakes, I had three brakes not working,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“So in an F1 car, it’s never a good thing. And yeah, the front left was working well, the front right was half working, and the two rear brakes were not working at all.
“And when I say at all, it’s that on data, there’s no deceleration at all. It’s like, I don’t know, the callipers were not even in the car. So it’s a little bit of an issue.”
Leclerc erred on the side of caution by not going into the details of this particular issue. But commented how he will try Hamilton’s configuration next time out to see if it solves the issue.
“The only thing I can say is that we have a solution. I’ll go to Lewis’ configuration from next race onwards, which hopefully will be a step. But yeah, it’s been a nightmare,” he added.
Safety Car triggered Charles Leclerc’s brake failure at F1 Monaco GP
After getting out of the car, Leclerc had revealed that he had been suffering with brake issues since the Miami GP weekend.
However, the final nail in the coffin for his home race chances came with the Safety Car.
Under Safety Car conditions, Leclerc lost his brakes, and nothing he did in the cockpit could ever get them back.
“The problem was the safety car,” Leclerc asserted. “As soon as I did the safety car, three of my four brakes stopped working. I could never switch them on again. Nothing was working anymore.
“And yeah, I tried to do many actions in the car to try and help it. The only solution I had was to not brake in the last corner. But I would have crashed in turn one. I mean, there’s no way I could have done that. There was just no solution.
“So we’ll look into it. I don’t know if it was a rare issue. It’s often a problem here. I don’t know what was it, but there was a clear issue.”
Leclerc urges Ferrari intervention after Monaco GP DNF
Leclerc was visibly furious about how his Monaco GP came to an end. The race was red-flagged after his crash once the FIA decided to sweep the errant debris – seemingly eroded during the course of the race at La Rascasse.
Suggestions arose about how this could have caused Leclerc and Stroll’s incidents. But the Monegasque was adamant that it was an internal issue that had caused his misery.
“No, it’s very clear. I think Fred and Jerome then saw the data. And I think it’s very clear for everyone. I don’t think there’s any doubt,” he concluded.
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t think this should be the story of the day. I think we just need to find a solution for our brakes. And then when these things will happen, then I won’t be able to do my job properly. But yeah, today I was a passenger.”
Leclerc will hope that shifting to Hamilton’s setup negates the issues he’s been facing as F1 heads to Barcelona to race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, next weekend.
READ MORE – Charles Leclerc mystified by Ferrari ‘inconsistency’ in F1 Monaco qualifying
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