Emotional Leclerc dedicates Monaco win to his late father

Monaco native Charles Leclerc made history and achieved a long-held personal dream with an emotional maiden win in his home race on Sunday over Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz.

The Ferrari driver had started the race on polle three times in the past but each time been thwarted in the race, once by a driveshaft failure in 2021 and then by a pit stop mishap in 2022.

But the third time proved the charm, and after excelling in practice and then clinching a decisive pole on Saturday, there was no stopping Leclerc this time even after the initial start was immediately red flagged.

"No words can explain this," Leclerc said in parc ferme, clearly struggling to hold back the strong wave of emotions and tears that washed over him as the crowd cheered his achievement. "It is unbelievable.

"It is such a difficult race," he admitted. "That I have started twice on pole position and we couldn't quite make it makes [this victory today] even better, in a way. It means quite a lot.

• Read also: Ferrari's Leclerc finally secures historic home win in Monaco

"Obviously this is the race that made me dream of being a Formula 1 driver," he explained. "I was thinking about my dad a lot whilst driving: he gave a lot for me to be driving here, and it was a dream of ours for me to race and win here.

"It was a difficult race emotionally, as already 15 laps before the end you are hoping that nothing happens and the emotions were coming," he continued.

Charles wasn't the only driver to be fighting back the tears, with his brother Arthur - also a racing driver - on hand to witness the achievement.

"The weekend has been perfect, free practice, an amazing lap in qualifying and then in the race he managed the tyres so well to win. Big party tonight!

"I’m so happy, it’s the first time I cry seeing my brother win," he told the media in the paddock. "I just wish my Father was here to see this moment."

Hervé Leclerc passed away in 2017 just prior to the Formula 2 race weekend in Azerbaijan which saw Leclerc win the feature race on his way to winning the F2 title and securing his transfer to F1 the following season.

Today's victory was also one for the record books as the first time that a Monegasque racing driver has won the event since Louis Chiron took victory for Bugatti in 1931, almost two decades before the start of the modern F1 era.

This is Leclerc's sixth Grand Prix win and his first since the 2022 Austrian GP, although his team mate Sainz has taken wins in Singapore and Australia during that time.

"I want to thank the team for having done such incredible work over the last few months to give me the opportunity to finally win this race," Leclerc said. "It is a very special feeling."

The early red flag meant that Leclerc and the other drivers at the front of the grid for the restart had to change their strategy and switch from their original choice of mediums to a set of hards to take them to the finish.

"We knew that there were 78 laps to do on the same tyres, which was very, very difficult," he said. "It was really difficult at first.

"But we did a great management of the tyres," he stated. "There was a part of the race where we had to manage, but then in the last 10 laps, I pushed a bit more and the car felt amazing."

The result means that Leclerc closed up on Max Verstappen in the drivers championship to 31 points after the Red Bull driver only managed to finish in sixth place in an atypically poor weekend.

And with Sainz finishing today's race in third, Ferrari had cut the gap to their rivals in the constructors standings to just 24 points, meaning that the season is suddenly looking a good deal closer than anyone had been expecting.

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