Charles Leclerc’s home race ended in the wall today. The Leclerc Monza crash happened at the end of lap two, right as he defended fourth place from Oscar Piastri into the Parabolica. Leclerc caught the green painted runoff on the outside of the corner. His Ferrari snapped sideways and buried itself in the tyre barrier at full speed.
He climbed out on his own feet. That matters more than the result today. Marshals and doctors walked him to the medical car, and he sat with the team in the shade while barrier repairs got underway. A safety car came out first, then race control upgraded it to a full red flag once the damage looked serious.
The timing stings even more than usual. Leclerc had just been promoted to third on the grid after Piastri picked up a post-qualifying penalty. He also raced the opening laps in a helmet built specifically for this weekend, a tribute to Michael Schumacher’s 1996 arrival at Ferrari. That story now ends with him out of his own home Grand Prix before lap three even finished.
The medical car ran its usual check after a hit that size. F1 cars carry sensors that record impact force in G during a crash like this one. Neither Ferrari nor the FIA had released an exact number by the time the red flag came out. Big shunts at Parabolica have measured well above 20G in the past, so a number in that range or higher would not be surprising here. Leclerc walking away on his own says more than any single figure would anyway.
This was not the first time Leclerc has gone off at that exact corner. He suffered a similar high-speed spin at the same Parabolica back in 2020, also in a Ferrari, also at Monza. That makes two Leclerc Monza crashes at the same wall, six years apart.
Hamilton had already flagged frustration with Leclerc’s defensive driving into Turn 1 just minutes earlier, so things inside the Ferrari garage were tense before the crash even happened. That grid picture was already messy to begin with, and Piastri’s penalty ties directly.
The restart did not go Ferrari’s way either. Hamilton crossed the line sixth. No Ferrari car reached the podium on its own home weekend. Kimi Antonelli did the damage instead, climbing from nineteenth on the grid to win outright. So he caught Russell for the lead at the start of lap eighteen.
A free pit stop under a Virtual Safety Car helped him get there, one that Russell chose to skip. Russell held the point until then. Still, he did not sound thrilled about losing it. When his team radioed him about Antonelli’s pace, he shot back with a blunt “let me drive.” Verstappen picked off the final podium spot, finishing third.
McLaren never got a real shot at that final podium spot. Norris and Piastri spent the closing laps fighting each other for fourth instead. The team eventually stepped in to calm things down. That left Charles with nothing to show for a weekend that started so well.
He started third on the grid, wearing a helmet built for his own home crowd. Then he lost it all in a single moment at Parabolica. Bad luck barely covers it. On top of that, Italy’s biggest race of the year ends with zero Ferraris on the podium, in front of the one crowd that wanted it most.
