Charles Leclerc's Frustrating Exit at the Italian Grand Prix

Charles Leclerc cut a frustrated figure after a brutal early exit from the Italian Grand Prix, as he tried to make sense of both a fraught opening-lap fight with team mate Lewis Hamilton and the heavy crash that ended his race at Parabolica on Lap 2.

The Ferrari pair had lined up nose-to-tail in P3 and P4, Leclerc ahead of Hamilton, with the Tifosi roaring them towards Turn 1. That roar turned into a sharp intake of breath almost immediately.

Into the first chicane, the red cars went wheel-to-wheel, Leclerc defending hard on the inside as Hamilton tried to hang on around him. By Turn 2 it was on a knife edge. Hamilton was forced across the gravel and tumbled down the order, quickly telling the team over the radio that he had been pushed off.

Leclerc didn’t try to dress it up.

“With Lewis it was way too close into Turn 1 and unfortunately in Turn 2 – I don't know if we had contact or whatsoever,” he admitted afterwards. He described how he’d been “quite a lot on the inside curve” as he tried to make the corner, but couldn’t tighten the line enough. The only view he had of Hamilton’s fate came in his mirrors – precisely, he said, “never what you want between two cars of the same team.”

If that opening exchange set nerves jangling on the Ferrari pit wall, what followed silenced the entire circuit.

Pushing on at the front of the pack, Leclerc lost control at the fearsome Parabolica on Lap 2. The Ferrari snapped away, skated off the track and slammed into the barriers, his race over almost before it had begun. The grandstands, decked in red, watched in disbelief as one of their home heroes climbed out of the wrecked car. Thankfully, he walked away unhurt.

Leclerc later tried to unpack what had gone wrong in those few seconds.

“For the crash itself, I went on throttle – on the first lap it felt kind of weird, I had to go back off and on throttle,” he explained. He’d attempted to repeat that approach the next time around, but something, he said, still didn’t feel right. “On that second lap, I tried to do the same thing but, I don't know, it just felt a little bit weird, so we'll look into it.”

The car will now head back to the garage and the data to the engineers, as Ferrari sift through the traces to understand a crash that stunned Monza and turned a day of huge expectation into one of lingering questions.