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Charles Leclerc and the Monaco curse struck again for the young Ferrari driver this weekend. Leclerc was in his hometown, taking part in the Monaco Historic Grand Prix where he was driving the 1974 Ferrari 312 B3, which the late triple world champion Niki Lauda had driven at the time.
Watch the crash here:
At the end of his demo lap, however, the rear of the Ferrari stepped out and Leclerc ended up crashing into the barriers near the exit of the La Rascasse. Even the young Ferrari driver could not hide his disappointment as he took to Twitter and wrote:
“When you thought you already had all the bad luck of the world in Monaco and you lose the brakes into rascasse with one of the most iconic historical Ferrari Formula 1 car.”
The 24-year-old, however, was not the first driver to crash during the Monaco Historic Grand Prix. Last season, Jean Alesi was also involved in a similar crash with a 312B.
Many F1 fans reacted to the incident who felt he lost brakes going into the corner in a car that would not pass the modern safety standards needed for a Formula 1 car.
Other fans came out in support of the driver, defending him from the criticism online for crashing the almost 50-year-old car. One of them tweeted:
“Charles Leclerc is the only driver ever to have a brake failure in a 40+ year old f1 car, and get slandered for it.”
Charles Leclerc and the Monaco curse
Charles Leclerc seems to have a love and hate relationship with the track at the Principality. Although it is his home race, the Monegasque has never had an uneventful weekend at the track. It's almost startling that after multiple years of racing at the highest level and driving some of the best cars on the grid, the Ferrari driver has not scored anything meaningful on the track at any time.
The biggest heartbreak of all, however, was last season when Leclerc was able to beat the Red Bulls and the Mercedes drivers to pole position only to suffer a massive crash on the last lap of qualifying. While the Ferrari driver secured pole position, the crash meant that the car had terminal damage which was discovered during the formation lap. The 24-year-old stood by the sidelines and saw his teammate score a podium in what was one of the many examples of the Monaco curse striking the Ferrari driver.
