Going into the 2024 Monaco GP, Charles Leclerc was well aware of the home race ‘curse’ riding on his back. However, the local hero successfully lifted the curse with a sublime win, which turned him into a phenomenon in the Principality. From the Prince of Monaco to his ex-girlfriend Charlotte Sine, every Monegasque bowed to him.
The end of that ‘curse’, however, may have started another one. Ever since his win, Leclerc has failed to score points in three of the past four races.
It is almost a mystery as to how Ferrari has suddenly lost the pace, having won two races this year. Even Eddie Jordan has failed to make sense of it and feels Leclerc has failed to build on the momentum.
Speaking on his Formula for Success podcast with David Coulthard, Jordan said, “Charles Leclerc, having won and being the darling of everybody in Monaco, royalty, everyone was bowing to his greatness. And that was a great race win.”
“Nevertheless, you’ve got to capitalize on those race wins and make sure that you build on it. Otherwise, the foundation is gone. I’m struggling to find out why or where is that speed gone that he showed so clearly in Monaco and in other races in the past,” Jordan added.
me since after monaco as a charles leclerc fan: pic.twitter.com/6BX2tSVdVT
— p ♀️ (@nmelesstrish) July 6, 2024
The recently concluded British GP was no less than a disaster for Leclerc. Ferrari strategists wrongly predicted the advent of rain and decided to pit him early. The move backfired as the rain did not arrive until the next seven to eight laps.
That put the P11 starter in P14 at the end of the race. And to make things worse for the Monegasque, he finished a lap down to race winner Lewis Hamilton. Speaking after the race, team principal Fred Vasseur admitted the car was undrivable, and that Ferrari needed to take a deeper look into their plaguing issues.
Leclerc tired of failures at Ferrari
The abysmal performance at Silverstone left Leclerc lost for words after the race. While he highlighted the major fault to be that of the wrong tire strategy at Silverstone, he also admitted to experiencing some issue or the other at each race in the recent past. To overcome that, there is no other way but to ‘reset’.
F1’s official website quoted him as saying, “I don’t even know what to say anymore when I’m coming here [to the TV pen]. We’ve just got to reset as a team, but… yeah. There’s always one different reason that it doesn’t click, and that makes it even more difficult to analyze and jump forward, so we will try to put everything together in Budapest.”
