Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was forced to abandon the F1 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya GP after facing reliability issues in the closing laps.
Leclerc started the weekend on the wrong foot. While he remained within the top 4 during the free practice sessions, the Ferrari driver crashed in Qualifying. A few minutes into Q3, he hit the barriers, leaving him P10 on the starting grid for Sunday.
As the lights went out in the race, Leclerc had a great start. After immediately going from 10th to 7th, he was then able to overtake Piastri and take 6th. Luck was not on his side later, when a Virtual Safety Car was called out as Alonso stopped on track and the Monegasque came out of the pits. It allowed Verstappen to stay ahead.
Still, things got worse with less than 5 laps remaining. Car 16’s power steering failed and finally forced him to retire from the race. This disastrous weekend continued a DNF streak for the Monegasque driver who also did not finish the race a weekend before in his home GP.
On the other side of the garage, the story was completely different. Lewis Hamilton successfully took advantage of the VSC and pitted comfortably. He came out in the lead with fresher tyres, and by the end managed to score his first win for Ferrari with a near 20-second margin.
Leclerc explains what caused his retirement
With just a few laps remaining, the Ferrari driver went off into the gravel in Turn 2 and crawled back to the pits before retiring. After the race, Leclerc explained his SF-26 had suffered a brake-by-wire mechanical issue.
“I mean I had a BBW fail and I had no power steering anymore so turned two hours in the corner and then there was no power steering suddenly.
“And obviously then that was the end of my race,” he lamented.
“He deserves all of it”: Leclerc on Hamilton’s first win with Ferrari
Lewis Hamilton made history in 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya GP. Not only did he break his own record, by winning a 106th F1 race, but he finally stepped onto the first step of the podium dressed in red.
When praised for playing a team role during the race as he easily let Hamllton by at one stage on much older tyres, Leclerc said: “I don’t want to take any credit for today’s race.
“I mean I don’t think I had a role into it at all. I think Lewis and the team has done the job and eventually got the win all by themselves.
“I mean surely I could have stayed two, three corners ahead of Lewis but that would have been very stupid from me anyway and Lewis won with an incredible margin, 20 seconds.”
He congratulated his teammate: “He’s been incredible in the last three weekends. He’s been really on it and he deserves all of it.”
“It’s up to me to up my game,” says Leclerc
After having a hard time adjusting to Ferrari in 2025, Hamilton has shown consistency throughout the 2026 season. In the previous two races before Barcelona, he finished P2, while Leclerc struggled. Even though the gap to Mercedes is still wide, Ferrari has shown good pace.
Currently, Hamilton is P2 in the Drivers’ Championship with 115 points and is a possible contender for the fight. He is behind Antonelli with 156 points and ahead of Russell with 106. Meanwhile, Leclerc sits in P4 with 75.
While congratulating Hamiton, the Monegasque stated: “Now it’s up to me to up my game, to find this confidence with this car, to put everything together and hopefully with clean weekends.”
In the last two races, Leclerc crashed both times in Qualifying and during the race in Monaco. In the previous two, he struggled with the car as he finished P8 in Miami and P4 in Canada.
“It’s true also that the last four weekends haven’t been very clean technically also,” he admitted.
“For me we’ve had quite a lot of issues.” He concluded: “So I’m just looking forward to have clean races, taking the rhythm again and hopefully fight in the front as well.”
