What Happened to Charles Leclerc During Monaco GP Qualifying? Why Did He Receive a Three-place Grid Penalty?

Monaco’s Charles Leclerc has already had a disastrous start to his home Grand Prix weekend as he received a three-place grid penalty following a qualifying incident with Lando Norris. The stewards penalized Leclerc after they came to the conclusion that the Monegasque impeded the Briton.

While a fuming Norris was adamant that Leclerc should receive a penalty for the incident, the Ferrari driver attempted to plead his innocence by stating that he tried his best to get out of the way. However, after hearing the views of both drivers, the stewards have decided to give Leclerc a grid penalty that will drop him down from third to sixth, behind Lewis Hamilton.

What happened to Charles Leclerc during the Monaco GP?

After carefully reviewing the incident, the stewards issued a statement to explain why they believe that a three-place grid penalty for Charles Leclerc was the most appropriate form of punishment, given the circumstances. While they acknowledged that Leclerc did ‘impede‘ Lando Norris, they do not believe that he could have done much in that instance.

An excerpt of the stewards’ report read, “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“.

Their report added that both drivers agreed to the fact that “there was little that Leclerc could have safely done in the tunnel to avoid impeding”. The stewards then concluded their report by stating that since Ferrari could have prevented such a situation by informing Leclerc as early as possible, they deem a three-place grid penalty as the fairest form of punishment.

F1 fans slam Leclerc’s race engineer Xavi after stewards release their verdict

After reading the stewards’ verdict, Ferrari fans were left fuming with Charles Leclerc’s race engineer for not informing the Monegasque in time about Lando Norris’ position on track. Several such as Clara, Abdullah and Mandy requested Ferrari to ‘fire Xavi‘.

On similar lines, fans such as Mel called Ferrari’s performance ‘unacceptable,’ making it clear that they needed to be better in their communication.

And then there were some other fans such as Cande who expressed their sheer anger after reading Ferrari’s statement. They were unhappy after the team attempted to console their fans by stating that Leclerc’s penalty promotes Carlos Sainz to fourth.