Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Imola, 2022

Leclerc crashes Lauda’s Ferrari 312B3 at Monaco GP Historic after brake problem

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In the round-up: A brake problem led to Charles Leclerc crashing Niki Lauda’s 1973 Ferrari 312B3 at La Rascasse during a display in Monaco

In brief

Leclerc crashes Lauda’s Ferrari 312 B3 after brake problem in Monaco

Formula 1 world championship leader Charles Leclerc crashed Niki Lauda’s Ferrari 312 B3-74 after suffering brake problems during a display at Monaco as part of the Historic Grand Prix event.

The Monegasque driver was given a special opportunity to drive the car as part of the Monaco Historique Grand Prix schedule, driving the 1973 machine raced by Niki Lauda along with former grand prix winner Jacky Ickx in an older 312B. However, Leclerc lost control of the car approaching La Rascasse and spun backwards into the barrier, causing significant damage to the car.

Ferrari said Leclerc’s run had ended due to a “brake problem.” Leclerc he previously drove a Ferrari 312T at the team’s Fiorano test track prior to the Miami Grand Prix weekend.

Formula E is “difficult”, Giovinazzi admits

Dragon Penske Formula E driver Antonio Giovinazzi that he’s finding Formula E “quite hard” after his pointless start to the 2022 season so far.

The former Alfa Romeo Formula 1 driver is competing for Dragon Penske this season but the team sit bottom of the Formula E championship table, the only team of 11 to have failed to score a point after eight races.

Speaking ahead of yesterday’s second Berlin EPrix where he finished 22 and last after a season-best qualifying of 16th, Giovinazzi admitted his lack of experience in the electric racing series was proving a hindrance.

“It’s difficult,” Giovinazzi said. “It’s different for sure. I expected it, but yes, it’s quite hard. Quite a different format, a different car, so everything is quite new for me.

“Now, finally, especially in qualifying, the pace is better – I just need more laps, more experience. There is not much there that we can do at the track – there is no testing. It’s been this weekend quite hard to adjust to two new tracks for the first time, you know. So it’s hard but yeah, I just to keep improving. ”

McLaren prospect Ugochukwu claims first win in cars in British F4

McLaren junior driver Ugo Ugochukwu took his first win in a car at yesterday’s third race of the British F4 championship at Brands Hatch Indy.

Aged just 14-years-old, Ugochukwu, who is racing for Carlin in the championship this season, won from third on the grid, passing team mate Oliver Grey on the opening lap and then passing leader Alex Dunne after a Safety Car restart to lead the rest of the race.

Ugochukwu was signed to McLaren’s junior driver programme early in 2021 after a promising karting career, including winning the 2020 FIA OKJ European Championship. McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown was in attendance at Brands Hatch to watch his team’s prospect claim his first win in cars.

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This weekend’s Caption Competition winner is @thedoctor03!:

Seb assured Mick that the “act now or swim later” on his t-shirt was a genuine environmental concern, rather than friendly advice towards his career
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Thanks to everyone who came up with caption idea this week and a special mention to Dom, Sham, and EffWunFan who all came up with particularly good captions.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Rob A, Warner16 and Lotus49!

On this day in motorsport

  • 30 years ago today Nigel Mansell took his fifth consecutive pole position in San Marino, a second ahead of team mate Riccardo Patrese

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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17 comments on “Leclerc crashes Lauda’s Ferrari 312B3 at Monaco GP Historic after brake problem”

  1. Leclerc was just practising for the GP, or perhaps trying to get an head start so he won’t crash later.
    The car survived the crash quite well, goes to show the effectiveness of tec pro and how low mass helps with safety.

    1. Those old cars doesn’t have carbon gearboxes so they can survive those small incidents. It looked more then he just put his foot to early to the bottom then a brake fault so he was too eager again.

      1. @macleod
        Charles himself said afterwards that he didn’t do anything different than the lap before. He hit the brakes and suddenly the pedal went to the floor. Charles got scared and spun the car.
        Usually Charles Leclerc isn’t one to hide his own mistakes and is actually very honest about them. This suggests to me that there was something wrong with the car, whatever it may have been.

  2. Watching the live onboard of Ugo ride the wet exit curb of Graham Hill bend with opposite lock on was a joy to behold.

    A future F1 star if I ever saw one…

    1. Is it me or is Ugo really tall…or is Zac really short..!?

      1. @millionus son of a model, he is going to be tall.

        1. @peartree @millionus Zak is also a bit on the short side.

    2. @f1-ploss Can you post a link to this video?

  3. Man…i saw a video of this and i convinced myself it was just a video game reply (real vs cgi is tough on my tv sometimes). It was real? Poor guy…

  4. His Monaco curse dating back to the 2017 F2 event is seemingly neverending, but hopefully, the GP in two weeks will be a different story with him at the very least reaching the chequered flag before anything else.

    Welcome to FE, Gio. He better get used to that series as his F1 return chance for next season is slim.

    I thought Sutil had stopped active racing altogether, as I hadn’t heard nor seen any mentions on him pretty much since he left Williams reserve role post-2015.

    1. Charles Leclerc is downright cursed at Monaco ;)
      Suspension and electrical failure in F2, brake failure a couple of laps from the end on his F1 debut in 2018, failing to get out of Q1 in 2019 due to a team error (after being fastest in FP3), the team failing to fully repair his car last year.
      As Charles didn’t suffer an engine failure during his home GP so far, that would be my guess for this year ;)

      But honestly, I too hope he can turn it around this year and finish on the podium at Monaco or at the very least just finish the race for the first time.
      For all the bad luck that he suffered so far, he also binned it in 2019 (should’ve gone faster in Q1 and didn’t need to crash in the race) and had an unnecessary crash last year. If he can keep it out of the barriers, Charles should have a great chance to win the race this time.

      1. Yes, you never know, I remember verstappen being cursed as well in monaco, then finally in 2021 he managed to lead his first monaco lap (I noticed that as I was watching) and ended up leading the full race.

  5. Any illegal updates?

  6. Aged just 14-years-old, Ugochukwu

    He turned 15 recently. 14 year olds aren’t allowed to drive in FIA F4 categories.

  7. At least it wasn’t in front of Prince Albert – he was in London, watching West Ham v Manchester City!

  8. Discussions are been kept largely behind closed doors but most of the Indycar drivers were very critical of the Aeroscreen on Saturday & the feeling is that racing in full wet conditions with moderate/heavy rainfall will be impossible going forward unless the screen can be removed for those conditions.

    There is also a general feeling of frustration as going back to the very beginning of it’s testing those who had concerns/criticisms were not simply ignored but also undermined to the point where there concerns could be shut down & swept under the rug with them simply labelled as ‘whiners’ or ‘They simply don’t care about safety’.

    Even now if a driver (Past or present) or prominent media figure raises issues publicly they are quickly jumped on. Will Buxton not that long ago tweeted something about how all the drivers he had spoken to had been critical of cockpit temperatures only for I think it was Graham Rahal to quickly shut him down with something that was basically like ‘Nobody I know is critical of it so shut up’ & that is the sort of thing anybody that is too critical publicly has to deal with.

    It’s starting to feel more & more like NASCAR in this regard. You don’t criticize the series, it’s regulations or it’s officials & you stick to the script the series officials want in public. If you go ‘off script’ you will be fined or taken down a few pegs so that people take you less seriously. It’s all got very corporate over the past decade, Way more so than this series ever was before.

    And the broadcast partners also have a lot more say in how things are run now. NBC dictates the weekend format, When sessions start/finish, When caution periods end & things like that. It again is getting more & more like NASCAR in that regard. It’s difficult sometimes when you can see decisions been made which ultimately aren’t for the benefit of either the sport or the show but just the domestic broadcaster.

  9. Very sad to hear that apparently only 85 Alpine A110s have been sold in its 4 years in Australia. The world’s public don’t seem to realise that with the Lotus Elise and Alfa Romeo 4C out of production, the A110 is now the last ever vaguely affordable lightweight mid-engined sportscar in history. It’s not available in manual, but you can’t have it all. Once the A110’s gone, currently the next lightest is the hugely successful Porsche Boxster, whose lightest model is a whole 275kg lardier. Hopefully with Formula E cars becoming lighter than F1, the Alpine-Lotus electric sportscar due in 2025 won’t be insanely heavy, but I’d be shocked if it gets close to the the A110’s 1109kg, let alone the Elise’s 920kg.

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