Leclerc says Madrid’s La Monumental will ‘reward the brave’

Charles Leclerc’s early verdict on Madrid’s brand-new Madring suggests the rest of the F1 grid may need to more courage than luggage for next month’s inaugural event.

The Ferrari driver sampled the 5.416km Spanish Grand Prix venue during a July filming day alongside team-mate Lewis Hamilton, completing laps while bulldozers, dust and unfinished grandstands still dominated the scene.

“I did some laps behind a Stelvio, or whatever that car was,” he told the media recently in Hungary.

“Obviously, it was in the middle of the works. There was still so much work, and there was so much dirt on the track.”

Yet beneath the construction-site chaos, Leclerc saw something far more enticing.

“But it looks like a cool track, and I love city tracks. It felt like a very challenging city track, which has all the characteristics that I like. So I cannot wait to try it properly once we go there for the race weekend,” he said.

La Monumental - the corner everyone is talking about

Madring’s headline act is La Monumental, a 547-metre banked right-hander with a daunting 24% gradient – the steepest the FIA allows.

Drivers are expected to endure around 4G for roughly six seconds through the turn, making it the longest banked corner on the current calendar.

Leclerc believes it has all the ingredients to become Formula 1’s next “iconic” challenge.

“It’s a very, very special corner,” he said. “It’s a corner where I feel, in qualifying, we’ll have to, I’ll say it in a polite way, but we’ll have to be very brave because it’s going to be on the limit. So that’s going to be really cool.”

“I think it’s going to be a really cool corner. And, yes, I do believe it can become one of the most iconic corners of the season, especially once the grandstand is built.

“I think that will also add to the experience of that corner.”

In other words: Raidillon with a Spanish accent and perhaps a larger bill for fresh underwear.

Full commitment required

In a more direct comparison, Leclerc dismissed suggestions that La Monumental is simply Madrid’s version of Zandvoort’s now famous Arie Luyendyk Bocht banking.

“The final corner at Zandvoort is actually flat out,” he explained. “Maybe Turn 3 at Zandvoort, which is really cool as well. It’s slower, though.”

“But at Madring, it doesn’t look flat as of now, at least. I was very, very far from being flat during testing, mostly because of the dust that was on the track.”

And if anyone wondered whether the circuit suits him, Leclerc’s answer was pure racer.

“I like city tracks in general, so I have little doubt that I’ll love Madring,” he added. “Whether it will fit me or not, I don’t really know.”

“But one thing for sure is that you will have to go full commitment, and this I always enjoy on city tracks.”

Madrid wanted a spectacular F1 debut. Leclerc’s early reconnaissance suggests it may have built one – and a corner capable of separating the brave from the merely employed.

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