Ferrari brakes supplier responds to Charles Leclerc’s Monaco GP rant | F1 | Sport

Ferrari’s brakes supplier has released a statement of its own in response to Charles Leclerc’s epic rant after crashing out of the Monaco Grand Prix. The frustration was flowing for the Monegasque after suffering a DNF in his home race on Sunday, having buried the nose of his Ferrari in the barrier at the final corner of the Monte Carlo street circuit.

That accident led to a the race being suspended because the track was breaking up in that section of the circuit. Not long before Leclerc’s crash, Lance Stroll had also hit the barrier at the same place and the replays of both incidents from the cameras mounted on board both cars suggested the loose surface could have been a contributory factor.

But Leclerc was adamant that his “borderline dangerous” brakes were the cause of his crash. He fumed: “It was the brakes. It doesn’t help to have the asphalt coming off, but the data speaks for itself. It’s extremely frustrating. I think I’ve always been very honest and no matter how many mistake I make, I hate to look at myself in the mirror and see myself making excuses when I do a mistake, so that’s why I’m always bluntly honest when I’m in front of cameras.

“But I’m not going to take any of the blame today. The amount… It’s not even braking – I touched the brakes and there’s just something with those front brakes, it just braked a lot more than I wanted and the rears, there was no deceleration. It was like I had no rear brakes at all. That’s what I’m dealing with for two races now… Today I look like an idiot.”

In a separate interview, Leclerc said the situation was “just not acceptable”, claiming that “three of my four brakes stopped working” when the safety car came out as temperatures cooled and he struggled to get them warm and operational again. Ferrari brakes supplier Brembo seem to have been concerned enough about Leclerc’s public comments to put out a statement of their own.

It read: “Brembo Group is really surprised by the statements made by Charles Leclerc after F1’s Monaco Grand Prix. The partnership between Brembo and Scuderia Ferrari has continued for more than 50 years and also extends to other brands within the Group, including AP Racing clutches and Ohlins dampers, confirming the strength and breadth of this long-standing collaboration.

“At present, the company does not know the causes of the issues experienced by Charles Leclerc and therefore considers it premature to draw definitive technical conclusions before the available data has been analysed. In cases such as this, it is necessary to examine the telemetry data together with the team’s engineers in order to accurately determine the origin of the incident.

“Brembo is a benchmark in F1 and is present on every car on the grid through its braking technologies. Over the years, F1 teams have continued to choose Brembo solutions, recognising their reliability, innovation and world-class performance. The group will continue to invest in innovation, reliability and performance, while continuing its collaboration with Scuderia Ferrari and all other F1 teams.”

Leclerc’s team-mate Lewis Hamilton encountered no such issues on his car and finished the Grand Prix second. With the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix fast approaching this weekend, Leclerc was at least able to offer some hope that the situation will not continue as he already knows what he wants to do to fix the problem.

He said: “The only thing I can say is that we have a solution in-house. I’ll go in Lewis’ direction from the next race onwards, and that will solve the issues that I deal with. Maybe Lewis’ configuration has other issues, but I just need consistency at this point. That’s it.”