Charles Leclerc and the Monaco Curse: Top 5 Instances

Charles Leclerc's latest crash in Monaco brought back the spotlight on his fabled "Monaco Curse". The Ferrari driver, who is a resident of the Principality and grew up there, has been the victim of this curse for so many years that the phenomenon has reached mythical proportions. Accordingly, the young Monegasque, arguably one of the greatest talents to grace the sport in the last decade, has never been too far away from the walls of the circuit, ending up there more often than he would have liked.

In this piece, we will list down five instances when the Monaco Curse struck Leclerc, and we will leave it up to you to decide if this phenomenon really is a "curse" or just a figment of the fans' imagination.

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Charles Leclerc and his Monaco Curse

#5 2017 F2 Championship Monaco GP

Charles Leclerc has had one of the most dominating F2 seasons in the history of the series. Even in the Monaco edition, he had qualified on pole and was leading the race comfortably. Disaster, however, struck the then-Prema driver as he encountered suspension problems and had to retire from the feature race. The Sprint race was even less fruitful as the driver was forced to start from the back of the grid at Monaco of all places and hence could not make an impression.

#4 2018 F1 Monaco GP

Charles Leclerc was on course for points with Sauber at his first-ever Monaco GP in F1. With only a few laps left, however, disaster struck once again as he suffered a brake failure and crashed into the back of Toro Rosso's Brendan Hartley.

#3 2019 F1 Monaco GP

Charles Leclerc's first race as a Ferrari driver brought with it a lot of anticipation. It was his home race, he was racing with the most prestigious team on the grid, and throughout the weekend, had shown that he was capable of fighting at the sharp end of the grid.

During Saturday's qualifying, however, it was once again a case of lady-luck turning a blind eye on Leclerc as an erroneous strategy by Ferrari forced his elimination in Q1. Forced to start at the back of the grid in his home race, he was far too aggressive in his approach and ended up damaging his car after making contact with Renault's Nico Hulkenberg.

Despite having a strong car underneath him, the Monegasque hobbled home with another DNF at the track.

#2 2021 F1 Monaco GP

Arguably the most painful strike of all has to be what happened last season with the Monegasque. After the first runs in Q3, Charles Leclerc had placed the Ferrari on pole position, beating the Red Bulls and the Mercedes on his way, to the surprise of everyone.

On his final qualifying lap, however, Leclerc pushed too far and ended up crashing his car. Although the session was aborted and he claimed pole, the car was just too damaged to continue as the Ferrari driver could not even start the race and had to watch it from the sidelines.

#1 2022 Historical Monaco GP

Finally, the most recent one! The Historical Monaco GP featured Charles Leclerc driving triple world champion Niki Lauda's Ferrari. At the end of his demonstration lap, however, Leclerc lost the rear of the car and ended up in the barriers.

Surprisingly, the track has not been kind to the young Monegasque. Whether it is a "curse" or something else, it has so far been to the detriment of the Ferrari driver. With F1 returning to the track soon, it will be interesting to see what kind of a weekend the 24-year-old has at the track.