The team and the Monegasque are still second in their respective championship classifications and now everything about this weekend will be analysed in depth to ensure that this race remains the only flaw in a season that up until now had lived up to expectations.

The Grand Prix started on a wet track and things immediately got complicated for Charles as a problem with the power unit compromised his pace. Carlos also had a difficult start from the wettest side of the grid, which caused him to drop several places. Leclerc was in damage limitation mode until a car reset in the pits fixed the problem, but by then he had already been lapped and there was no point in adding kilometres on the car with no chance of scoring points. The team therefore called him back to the pits to retire on lap 40. Carlos was just outside the points for a long time, running in a train of cars, all with DRS. It seemed as though his race might come alive after the rain abated and all the cars had switched to slicks. On Medium tyres, Carlos was up to tenth place and had just set his best lap overtaking Alexander Albon for ninth place. However, on lap 53, the Spaniard was caught out by a wet kerb which sent him into a spin. Unfortunately, the Williams driver was right behind and was unable to avoid clipping the Ferrari. The collision ended the race for both of them, in Sainz’s case because of a broken rear wing and damaged floor.

The team now returns home after what was, by a long way, the worst weekend of the season so far. Time to recharge the batteries and go racing again in a fortnight’s time in Carlos’s home race, the Spanish Grand Prix at the Barcelona-Catalunya circuit.