Monte Carlo – He waited 686 days to return to the top step of the podium, almost two years (Austria 2022). He waited a lifetime to do it at his home, finally winning the Monte Carlo Grand Prix. He seemed bewitched, the Principality, for the little prince Charles, who finally became «Reclerc» at the sixth attempt, the third after taking pole position which is almost always decisive here and instead for him – the damage in 2021, the rain and the wrong strategy in 2022 – it hadn’t yet been. It took 26 years of patience and perhaps the last two and a half hours, the ones it took him to complete the 78 laps with interruption (red flag) between the two starts, were the longest in anticipation of the triumph, even if as it often happens in this race – if the weather doesn’t have a hand in it – practically nothing happened.
World Cup reopened
Blessed boredom, anyway. Blessed little train. The taboo is broken, the curse is behind him, Leclerc can uncork the champagne: finally a prophet in his homeland, this for him will certainly be the best of his six victories in Formula 1. He hasn’t succeeded since 10 July 2022, at the Red Bull home, when he conquered Austria. It was 2022 of World Cup illusions, this success – the second of the Red Team in 2024 after that of Carlos Sainz in Australia – could equally mark a reversal of trend in the championship. Because a third of the way, 8 races out of 24, Charles is within 31 points of Max Verstappen, frustrated at the wheel of a Red Bull that has lost two of the last three races (the other, in Miami, won by Lando’s McLaren Norris), while Ferrari – Sainz third – comes considerably closer in the constructors’ standings.
Fear on the first lap
Super Max, they said. After making us bored for a couple of seasons, this time it was his turn. “Kill me,” she joked over the radio after about eighty kilometers. “It’s all so boring – he added -, I had to bring a pillow.” This is Monte Carlo, beauty. Net of accidents: on the first start, everything had happened. Sainz had almost passed Oscar Piastri in Santa Devota, but in contact with the McLaren he suffered a puncture in the front left. His GP seemed to have ended at the Casino, but the Spaniard was put back into play by the madness of Kevin Magnussen (repeat offender), who rammed Sergio Perez a few tens of meters further back, smashing his Red Bull against the barriers. The images of the completely destroyed RB20 and the inevitable red flag are impressive, incredible that the Dane wasn’t even investigated. Unlike Esteban Ocon (10″ penalty, he will pay in Canada), who retired after the fratricidal clash with Pierre Gasly.
[[(gele.Finegil.Image2014v1) ++ F1: incidente nel 1/o giro a Monaco, subito bandiera rossa ++]]
40 minute stop
The 40-minute interruption – we restarted with the same positions as in qualifying – allowed the teams to vary their strategy, avoiding the obligation to pit-stop: those who had started on hard tires (Verstappen, George Russell, Lewis Hamilton) he rode the middle school and the others (Leclerc, Piastri, Norris) vice versa. To win, it was therefore enough for Charles to take the lead at the first braking point, then managing the pace of the long procession towards the finish line, without changing positions among the leaders. Only concern, tire wear. His race engineer, Bryan Bozzi, first asked him to warm them up gradually, in order to optimize their duration. Then halfway through the race he invited him to “slow down a little”, to prevent Norris from being able to allow himself to stop in front of Russell, but Leclerc preferred to lead him. And after about fifty laps maybe he was getting bored himself, because he joked over the radio: “I can go faster than that, do you want to see what pace I have?”. Perhaps he wanted to lessen the wait for triumph. «No Charles, we are not interested», Bozzi played along. To make his dream come true, this was enough (and advanced).
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