Leclerc's Monza Dream Ends in Parabolica Crash

Charles Leclerc’s home race at Monza lasted barely two laps. In front of Ferrari’s tifosi, the Monegasque star slammed into the barriers at the exit of Parabolica, walking away unharmed but leaving a mangled car, a shaken grandstand and a red-flagged Italian Grand Prix.

The incident came at the end of lap two, with Leclerc clinging to fourth place and under heavy pressure from McLaren’s Oscar Piastri. Pushing through the legendary, high‑speed right-hander, Leclerc’s Ferrari snapped into sudden oversteer. The rear stepped out, the car spun, and he went backwards into the outside barriers at high speed.

He climbed out on his own, but the damage to the barriers told its own story. What began as a safety car quickly escalated into a full red flag as race control halted proceedings to allow repairs.

For Ferrari, it was a brutal early twist at their home Grand Prix. The afternoon had already started badly. Off the line, Leclerc forced team-mate Lewis Hamilton wide, compromising the Briton’s run and dropping the Ferrari driver down the order as the pack streamed towards Turn 1. Hamilton slipped to eighth, while Mercedes’ George Russell pounced to grab the lead from surprise polesitter Pierre Gasly in the Alpine.

On the radio, Hamilton’s frustration crackled through: “Charles pushed me off.”

The stewards, though, opted not to investigate the first-lap clash between the Ferrari pair.

Leclerc, meanwhile, headed straight to the medical centre for precautionary checks given the force of the impact. He was quickly cleared and released, physically fine but out of a race that had promised so much in front of Ferrari’s home crowd.

When the debris was cleared and the barriers repaired, the grid reformed for a standing restart at 15:39 local time. Teams were allowed to change tyres during the stoppage, injecting another layer of strategy into a race already reshuffled by chaos.

Russell would lead them away again, Gasly alongside him on the front row, with Max Verstappen and Franco Colapinto poised just behind. Further back, championship leader Kimi Antonelli had already begun damage limitation of his own, charging from 19th on the grid after an engine penalty to sit 12th by the time the red flag flew.

Monza had barely begun, and already it had claimed its first major scalp.