Charles Leclerc’s Monaco curse: A timeline

When Charles Leclerc signed a new two-year contract to remain at Ferrari, it wasn’t the act of a driver chasing a better offer. It was a statement of belief - mutual, considered, made with full knowledge of the ground already ceded. He has been let down by the Scuderia in ways that would have driven a less loyal man to the exit, but even so, he continues to proclaim that the 2026 World Championship battle is "wide open."

Online betting sites are seemingly in agreement, but not in the sense that Leclerc was implying. The popular 7signs online sportsbook currently lists teenage championship leader Kimi Antonelli as the 1/2 favourite, with his teammate George Russell just behind at 9/4. That indeed could be considered "wide open," but when it comes to Leclerc’s hopes, the same bookie lists the Monegasque star as a distant 25/1 outsider.

Nowhere has his relationship with Ferrari been tested more brutally than on the streets of Monaco. These are his streets, his barriers, his grandstands. From childhood, he watched Monaco from the trackside, dreaming of a win at the circuit which seemed determined to deny him in a different way every single time. Until it didn’t. Here is the timeline of Charles Leclerc’s famous Monaco curse.

The Early Years

The year was 2017, and Charles Leclerc was 19 years old, tearing through Formula 2 with the kind of ruthless natural pace that makes people in paddocks stop talking. When the championship came to Monaco - his streets, his city, the circuit he had grown up watching from the barriers - the script felt inevitable.

He qualified on pole. He led away cleanly from Alexander Albon. He built a gap, then built it further, setting fastest lap after fastest lap, and for those few minutes, the whole thing seemed almost too easy. Then the safety car came out, and disastrous decisions from the pit wall saw him drop down to fourth. Then, on the restart, the suspension failed, and that was it. No more laps, no result, nothing to show for pace that evaporated the moment it mattered most.

That was the beginning of the curse, and the following year - Leclerc’s first in Formula One - it would continue. The rookie driver had already become just the second Monegasque driver ever to score points in Azerbaijan, and in Monaco, he quietly outqualified expectations to put the car in the top ten. He raced well. He was on course to finish. Then, with five laps remaining, his left front brake disc failed while exiting the tunnel, resulting in him ploughing into the back of Brendon Hartley’s Toro Rosso. Two races round these famous streets, two DNFs.

Ferrari Nightmares

In 2019, Leclerc arrived at Monaco in scarlet red for the first time - a Ferrari driver at his home Grand Prix, faster than his four-time world champion teammate Sebastian Vettel on multiple occasions already that season. He topped FP3. The pole was his to lose. Then Ferrari left him in the garage.

With rivals improving around him at the end of Q1, Leclerc asked over the radio whether he needed to go back out. Ferrari told him he was safe. He was not. He qualified 15th. In the race, he clawed his way forward until Rascasse swallowed him - a collision with Nico Hülkenberg punched a hole in his rear tyre, the floor was destroyed on the way back to the pits, and Ferrari retired the car. "I need some explanations," Leclerc said when the session ended. It would take five years for him to get some.

The 2021 edition was a different species of cruelty altogether. Leclerc was fastest in practice, fastest in qualifying - Ferrari’s first pole position since 2019 - and had crashed on his final Q3 lap only after his provisional pole time was already secured. The red flag denied everyone else a chance to respond.

Overnight, Ferrari inspected the car, declared the gearbox sound, and chose not to replace it - avoiding the five-place grid penalty that a change would have triggered. On Sunday morning, they were satisfied.

Then Leclerc pulled out of the garage on his formation lap. The driveshaft failed. He never started.

The subsequent investigation confirmed the qualifying crash had cracked the hub. The failure that ended his race was there the night before, undetected. Max Verstappen won and took the championship lead for the first time in his career. Leclerc, who had been the fastest man at Monaco all weekend, had contributed precisely zero race laps. "It’s a difficult one to take," he said. There are no words that would have done it justice.

Then came 2022, and perhaps the most painful failure of the lot. Leclerc was leading the drivers’ championship. He qualified on pole by a quarter of a second. He led his home Grand Prix, and Ferrari handed it away.

They failed to react to Sergio Perez’s pace on intermediates, then called in Carlos Sainz to pit - and Leclerc simultaneously - before immediately telling Leclerc to stay out. He was already in the pit lane. The accidental double stack buried him behind both Red Bulls. Perez won. Leclerc finished fourth, and he hasn’t held a championship lead since.

Breaking the Curse

In 2024, Leclerc qualified on pole, ending Verstappen’s record-equalling run and sending the championship leader into the wall. He had been here before - twice on pole, twice unable to see it through.

A first-lap red flag wiped the slate clean. He led the restart. He managed his tyres across 78 laps, controlling Oscar Piastri, Sainz, and Lando Norris without a pit stop, and took the win.

In the final laps, the emotions he had locked away for seven years came loose. "Over the last few laps, it was difficult - I was thinking a lot about my father, about everything he did to ensure that I was here today, and I was also thinking of Jules. Winning this race was a dream we all had." At the barriers, his brother Arthur said through tears, "It’s the first time I’ve cried seeing my brother win. I just wish my father was here as well."

That’s the ledger. That’s what Monaco cost him, year after year, in suspension failures and brake discs and gearbox gambles and pit wall catastrophes. And this week, with all of it fully accounted for, Charles Leclerc still signed another contract with Ferrari. The streets that broke him are the ones that finally gave him what he wanted most. Now, he has a new goal: A maiden world championship triumph.