Leclerc was leading the pole when he slammed into the wall at high-speed on Lap 18, emitting an anguished scream from the driver that was heard over the team radio. Unfortunately for the 24-year-old driver, this is the third time he is unable to finish a race after having led.
He has only converted two of his pole starts to win. In this latest fiasco, he gifted Verstappen the gift of a 63-point lead over Lewis Hamilton in the race to the Driver’s Championship.
After checking with his team if Leclerc was ok, Verstappen went on to win his 27th career Grand Prix, his second at the Circuit Paul Ricard.
“The car was quick today,” Verstappen said. “Unlucky for Charles, I hope he is OK, but I just did my race and looked after the tires.”
“I always try to get the most points possible. Some moves, you see they are on, and sometimes you just have to back out and wait for the end of the race. That’s what we did.”
“There are plenty more races to come where you have to score points. In that aspect, today was a great day.”
This crash is another in a string of unfortunate events for Leclerc. He had started strongly and was starting to build a lead from Verstappen. Disaster struck in Lap 18 when he appeared to lose the rear of his car and spun into the wall.
“No!” Leclerc screamed into the radio. Fortunately, he emerged from his car unscathed and later admitted that it was his error.
“I’ve been saying I think I’m performing at the highest level in my career but if I keep doing these mistakes then it is pointless to perform at a very high level,” Leclerc told Sky Sports.
“If we lose the championship by 32 points at the end of the season, I will know where they’re coming from and it’s unacceptable. I need to get on top of those things.”
“It’s been a very difficult weekend for me. I struggled a lot with the balance of the car … when it’s warm like this it’s very difficult to be consistent.”
It was also a good day for Mercedes with both George Russell and Lewis Hamilton securing podium finishes. This is Hamilton’s 300th career race. Russell, on the other hand, overtook Sergio Perez of Red Bull with just two laps to go.
“It was a tough race because my drinks bottle didn’t work but what a great result considering we’ve been so far off these guys all weekend,” Hamilton said.
“Reliability is one thing my team is amazing at so huge congratulations to the team back at the factories and the team here, without them we wouldn’t get this podium. George did an amazing job as well.”