Monaco’s Charles Leclerc just does not seem to get in a good weekend at his home race as he received a three-place grid penalty for impeding Lando Norris during qualifying on Saturday. While the 25-year-old received the penalty because of a miscommunication with his Ferrari team, several fans have bizarrely blamed his rumored girlfriend Alexandra Saint Mleux and ex-girlfriend Charlotte Sine for the same.
For example, several fans such as Marc strangely suggested that Alexandra is now following in Sine‘s footsteps by becoming ‘unlucky‘ for Leclerc.
Charlote no paddock e a Alexandra tbm, se o Leclerc não fizer uma boa classificação vai ser pq o a Charlote deu azar denovo? Ou a alex já começou dando azar?
— Marc Perceval ° ₁₆ (@gvn4c) May 27, 2023
On similar lines, fans such as Ana stated that they were not sure if Leclerc had ‘bad luck‘ because of Alexandra or Sine.
agr eu não sei se o azar do Charles Leclerc nessa corrida foi pela Alexandra ou pela Charlotte Siné
— Ana Beatriz¹⁶ ⁵⁵ (@maedoscoobyy) May 27, 2023
And then there were also some fans such as Larebe who surprisingly foreshadowed that Leclerc’s girlfriends have previously brought bad luck for the Monegasque. Before even qualifying on Saturday began, they wrote (translated from Italian), “Look, the afternoon has arrived. I think it is a thing of CL16’s girlfriends who bring bad luck (just joking, of course)“.
Guarda che è arrivata pomeriggio, io credo che sia una cosa delle fidanzate di cl16 che portano sfiga (si scherza, ovviamente)
— larebe¹⁶| it’s cl16 home gp 🇲🇨🏎 (@larebe__) May 27, 2023
Charles Leclerc receives a three-place grid penalty for impeding Lando Norris
After Charles Leclerc blocked a fast approaching Lando Norris during qualifying, it seemed evident that he would receive a penalty for the same. Since the Briton was on a fast lap, the Monegasque was required to get out of the way as per F1’s rules.
A closer look at the incident between Norris and Leclerc in the tunnel 👀#MonacoGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/uxp1jIRhq1
— Formula 1 (@F1) May 27, 2023
However, because of a slow communication between Ferrari and Leclerc, the 25-year-old did not have sufficient time to get out of the way. Moreover, with both drivers agreeing that Leclerc was not entirely at fault, the stewards decided to hand the Monegasque just a three-place grid penalty.
Instead, the stewards’ statement made it seem that they blamed Ferrari for this incident. A snippet of their statement read (as quoted by f1.com), “Leclerc reacted in a sensible way to a blue flag displayed by the marshals, but at this point it was too late. However, the stewards reviewed team radio, and Leclerc’s team failed to give him any warning about Norris’ approach until Norris was already directly behind him“.
‘Nothing just an inchident‘: Norris finds humor in his moment with Leclerc
While Lando Norris clearly stated in his post-qualifying interview that he believed that Charles Leclerc deserved to receive a penalty for the incident, he did find the time for some humor after the dust settled. The Briton hilariously replied to a post put up by F1’s Twitter handle, calling his moment with Leclerc “Nothing just an inchident“.
— Lando Norris (@LandoNorris) May 27, 2023
Leclerc used these same exact words after he had an infamous karting incident with Max Verstappen back in 2012. This moment has been recollected on several occasions whenever Leclerc or Verstappen have been involved in an incident on track.
