Ferrari's Charles Leclerc said he was made to "look like an idiot" after crashing out of Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix while in the podium places. 

Leclerc was running in third before he ran straight into the barriers at Turn 19 due to asphalt on the track, with the incident coming just after Lance Stroll had done the same. 

The race was suspended as stewards repaired the damage to the track, and upon the restart, Kimi Antonelli cruised to victory ahead of Leclerc's team-mate Lewis Hamilton. 

Leclerc's misfortune saw him drop to fourth place in the Drivers' Championship after Hamilton's second-placed finish, and he was audibly frustrated by his lapse in concentration. 

He described the situation as "borderline dangerous", but put the reasoning for his crash down to braking issues, rather than the condition of the track late in the race. 

"Brakes. It doesn't help to have asphalt that is coming off, but data speaks for itself. I don't know how much I can go into detail," Leclerc conceded. "It's extremely frustrating.

"I've always been very honest, no matter how many mistakes I make, I would hate to look at myself in the mirror and see myself finding excuses when I make a mistake.

"It's not even braking. I touched the brakes and there was just something with them. "We've had some differences with brakes in between cars, but I don't think it's been a disadvantage for me at all.

"But here and in Montreal with cold tyre temperatures, the inconsistency and the tyres being more sensitive because you're on the limit, it's just been an absolute nightmare.

"I'm weighing my words. I don't have many words. I looked like an idiot. When you look like an idiot for a mistake of your own, it's fine. It's borderline dangerous."

A bittersweet afternoon for us in Monaco pic.twitter.com/EfgOegK4oW

— Scuderia Ferrari HP (@ScuderiaFerrari) June 7, 2026

Sunday's Grand Prix marked the fourth time that Leclerc has failed to finish in his home race. 

A brake disc failure saw him crash out on his debut in 2018, before floor damage sustained early in the race in 2019 caused him to retire.

In 2021, Leclerc qualified on pole for the first time in Monte-Carlo, but crashed during the final minutes of qualifying and was unable to start the race. 

Leclerc also revealed that the issue with the brakes cropped up on his Ferrari during the first safety car period following Stroll's incident. 

"As soon as I did the safety car, three of my four brakes stopped working," Leclerc added. "I could never switch them on again; nothing was working anymore.

"I tried to do many actions in the car to try and help it. The only solution I had was to not brake in the last corner, but I would have crashed in Turn 1. There was just no solution.

"I don't know if it was a wear issue. It’s often a problem here. I don't know what it was, but there was a clear issue."