Red flag at Monza as Leclerc crashes heavily
Charles Leclerc lost control at the Parabolica and slammed into the barriers, bringing the 2026 Italian Grand Prix to a dramatic halt with George Russell in the lead.
Update: the race restarted and was won by Kimi Antonelli from 19th on the grid. Leclerc took no further part. Hamilton recovered to sixth. Read our full Italian Grand Prix race report.
Ferrari’s plan for Monza was always going to live or die at the Parabolica. On Sunday afternoon it died there. It was a very heavy impact. Leclerc lost the car on the approach to Curva Alboreto, the corner most people still call the Parabolica, on lap two while fighting Oscar Piastri, and went into the barriers. He climbed out under his own power, but sat on the ground for some time and was attended by the medical team. The safety car came out first, then the red flag. George Russell was leading when the race was stopped.
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Gasly led away, then both Ferraris came apart
Despite Russell having the pace for most of qualifying, it was Pierre Gasly who stunned on Saturday with a late effort to secure his first F1 pole position. It is Enstone’s first pole in 17 years, the team’s first since Fernando Alonso took one for Renault at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix. Nobody saw it coming, least of all Russell, who had topped both of Saturday’s sessions.
At the start, Gasly led from Russell, Leclerc, Piastri, and Verstappen. It looked for a moment like it might hold that shape. It did not. Gasly was leading when the two Ferraris ran very close together through the first chicane. Hamilton came off worse, running onto the gravel at the exit and dropping to ninth. One Ferrari already compromised. The other about to follow.
Russell holds the lead as Monza holds its breath
Russell took the lead at the start of lap two. Leclerc got past Gasly as well, but only briefly: the Alpine came straight back at him and took the place back on the next straight. The Mercedes looked quick, comfortable even. But what nobody in the grandstands could have known was that the race was already heading somewhere nobody planned.
Verstappen then took third from Leclerc, and Oscar Piastri, who had already lost three places on the grid to a penalty, came after him as well. Franco Colapinto had just cleared Piastri in the second Alpine. It was in that scrap, with Piastri right behind him and looking for a way past, that Leclerc lost the car.
A crash that stopped the Italian Grand Prix
Monza is long straights and a handful of very fast corners. At the speed these 2026 cars carry, a moment of lost grip in one of them is not a wobble you recover from. Leclerc lost the car while side by side with Piastri and went into the barriers hard. The 28-year-old got himself out of the cockpit, which is the first thing anyone in that grandstand wanted to see. He then sat on the ground for a while, talking with the medical team. Ferrari’s own race report, published after the chequered flag, confirms the crash and that his race ended there, but says nothing about his condition. Neither has the FIA. This piece will not guess.
What caused it is not yet clear, and the honest answer this early is that nobody outside the car knows. Leclerc was wheel to wheel with Piastri, off the normal line, on a part of the circuit where the grip falls away the moment you leave it. Until the stewards look at it, it is a racing incident with a very large number attached to the impact.
Ferrari’s Monza plan unravels in real time
Ferrari had brought its second power unit upgrade of the season to its home race, in a bid to close the gap on front-runners Mercedes and McLaren, with Lando Norris having won at Zandvoort. The new engine was meant to signal intent. Instead, Ferrari found itself with Hamilton’s race compromised by the lap-one clash and Leclerc’s race ended in the barrier.
Kimi Antonelli arrived at Monza with a 59-point advantage over both Russell and Hamilton, but started from the back of the grid after an engine penalty confirmed by his team. The championship leader was already working through the field when the red flag came. Russell, with Antonelli behind him and Ferrari gone, was suddenly in a position that a few hours earlier had looked uncertain. The restart would change things yet again.
Despite Russell having the pace for most of qualifying, it was Gasly who delivered. Toto Wolff had already spoken about what Verstappen cost Russell in qualifying before a single race lap was run. Then came the red flag. Monza has a way of making Saturday’s story feel like a long time ago.
Hamilton restarted eighth on medium tyres and worked his way as high as third during the virtual safety car period, before running wide at the first chicane twice in the closing stages and finishing sixth. Ferrari confirmed the sequence in its own race report from Monza.
Follow the latest championship standings and race results on our F1 standings page.
