Leclerc shares poignant thoughts during Monaco victory drive

Charles Leclerc has described how he was thinking of his late father Herve during his Monaco Grand Prix victory.

Leclerc converted pole position into a relatively straight-forward victory as a first lap red-flag removed strategy options as drivers could change tyres, with the leading four cars from Ferrari and McLaren all changing to the hard tyres. 

Leclerc defeated Oscar Piastri for a first grand prix win since the 2022 Austrian Grand Prix, and spoke how in the closing laps, his father, who died in June 2017 ahead of the Azerbaijan F2 round-up was on his mind in the cockpit.

"No words can explain this," an emotional Leclerc said.

"It is such a difficult race and that I have started twice on pole position and we couldn't quite make it makes it even better, in a way. It means quite a lot.

"Obviously this is the race that made me dream of being a Formula 1 driver, so it was a difficult race emotionally as already 15 laps before the end, you are hoping that nothing happens and the emotions were coming.

"I was thinking about my dad a lot more whilst driving, obviously he gave a lot for me to be driving here and it was a dream of ours for me to race and win here. It is unbelievable."

After the first lap red flag, drivers were able to switch tyres and run the remainder of the race on the same set of tyres, with the first four drivers all doing so - with Leclerc holding off Piastri for the first win by a Monegasque in Monaco. 

"It is really difficult, at first, we had quite a lot of margin, but we knew that there were 78 laps to do on the same tyres, which was very, very difficult," he reflected.

"But we did a great management of the tyres, and there was a part of the race where we had to manage, but then in the last 10 laps, I pushed a bit more and the car felt amazing.

"I want to thank the team for having done such incredible work over the last few months to give me the opportunity to finally win this race - it is a very special feeling.