Ferrari throw away historic Charles Leclerc victory after painful blunder

Four years ago today, Charles Leclerc should have been celebrating one of the most emotional victories in recent Formula 1 history.

Instead, the Monegasque driver sat fourth in his Ferrari, seething, his home race ruined by a catalogue of strategic errors from the Scuderia pit wall.

The 2022 Monaco Grand Prix, held on 29 May, began with Leclerc on pole alongside team-mate Carlos Sainz in a Ferrari front-row lockout.

Heavy rain delayed the start, and when the field eventually got underway behind the safety car on a soaked Circuit de Monaco, Leclerc controlled proceedings from the front with relative ease.

It was what followed, as the track dried, that turned the afternoon into a disaster.

The strategy unravelled in three laps

As conditions improved, Red Bull moved first, pitting Sergio Perez for intermediate tyres at the end of lap 16.

Ferrari hesitated. The team had been considering taking Leclerc directly from full wets to slick tyres, bypassing the intermediates altogether.

The Italian team then changed their minds, bringing Leclerc in on lap 18 for inters, by which point the undercut had done its damage. Leclerc rejoined behind Perez, the lead gone.

Worse was to come. On lap 21, with a dry line now clearly visible, Ferrari attempted to double-stack both cars for slick tyres.

Leclerc's engineer initially radioed to box, before a panicked instruction to stay out arrived far too late; the car was already committed to the pit lane. Forced to queue behind Sainz, Leclerc lost further time and dropped behind Max Verstappen into fourth.

His fury was audible over team radio, shouting at his engineers before later describing the race as "a freaking disaster."

Perez took the chequered flag to claim his first Monaco victory, with Sainz second and Verstappen third. For Leclerc, it was yet another Monaco heartbreak, another home race lost after being unable to start from pole the season before.

It took two more years, but Leclerc finally exorcised his Monaco demons in 2024, winning from pole to become the first Monegasque driver to triumph there since Louis Chiron in 1931.