Leclerc avoids unwanted F1 record with first home win · RaceFans

Charles Leclerc’s victory last weekend undoubtedly meant most to him because he finally scored a win in his home city. But it also drew a line under a frustrating spell in which he has repeatedly come close to winning yet failed to.

The Ferrari driver made Monaco only the 13th different country to produce a home race winner in the world championship era. It has had a home winner before – Louis Chiron, who in 1931 won the third Monaco Grand Prix, 19 years before the championship began. And of course it has been won by drivers who lived in Monaco many times before.

Leclerc and rival Max Verstappen scored the first home wins for their respective countries, the Red Bull driver doing so at Zandvoort in 2021. He remains undefeated in his home race since then.

Remarkably, this sixth win of Leclerc’s career came from his 24th pole position. He has as many poles as three-times champions Niki Lauda and Nelson Piquet. His wins tally puts him level with two champions – John Surtees and Jochen Rindt – as well as Tony Brooks, Gilles Villeneuve, Jacques Laffite, Riccardo Patrese, Ralf Schumacher and Sergio Perez.

The latter is the only driver in the field who could give his country its first home winner this year, when F1 visits Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Japan’s Yuki Tsunoda and Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo and Oscar Piastri could do the same, but they’ll have to wait until next year.

As Leclerc sat on pole position on Sunday in Monaco, had he failed to win he would have equalled the record for most consecutive pole positions which did not result in a victory. That was set by Rene Arnoux, who set 13 pole positions over four seasons from 1979 to 1982 without winning once: