Leclerc: There's been a lot of mistakes, we can't afford that

The curse of the home race still haunts Charles Leclerc, as the Ferrari driver suffered another heart break at the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix, finishing fourth after starting from pole, courtesy of another strategy blunder from Ferrari.

After starting on the Wet tyres and behind the Safety Car, Ferrari could not take a clear decision on the tyres' choice as the track dried out, with Leclerc asking for slicks, Ferrari put him on Intermediates, before finally switching him to the Hard compound following confusion between driver and pitwall.

The result was Leclerc losing his race lead and finishing fourth as Red Bull's Sergio Perez took his first win at Monaco, while his rival Max Verstappen - fourth in the race - increases his lead in the Formula 1 Drivers' Championship to 9 points.

Asked by Sky Sports F1 if he was let down by his team, Leclerc said: "Let down is not the word, sometimes mistakes can happen but there has been too many mistakes today overall.

"Obviously in those conditions we rely a little bit on what the team can see because you don’t see what the others are doing with intermediates, with dry tyres," he added.

"I’ve been asked questions if I wanted to go from the extreme wets to the slicks and I said, ‘yes but not now, a bit later on in the race’, but I don’t understand what made us change our minds and go on the intermediates.

"We got undercut then I stopped behind Carlos," the Monegasque went on. "There have been a lot of mistakes and we cannot afford to do that. It is hard as it has been in the other years here so I am getting used to it and getting back home feeling disappointed but we cannot do that, especially in a moment that we are in now.

"We are extremely strong now, the pace is strong, we need to take these opportunities, we cannot lose so many points like this, it is not even from first to second, it is from first to fourth, because after the first mistake we did another one.

"I love my team and I am sure we’ll come back stronger, it hurts a lot," the 24-year-old revealed.

Was indecision or panic part of the problem? Leclerc reflected: "I think the first one was a very clear decision and a very wrong one and from that moment onwards the mess started.

"I don’t know if it is panic, I don’t know, I obviously don’t hear all of the background radio messages in the team," he continued. But this is not up to me to judge but obviously the message that I had was not clear and the last one wasn’t clear because I was told to come in and then stay out.

"But I was already in the pitlane so that’s when I let it all out all on the radio and screamed because I couldn’t do anything and I knew that I was done," the 14-time polesitter admitted.

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto admits that the team has erred and understands Leclerc's anger of losing what could have win his maiden F1 win at home.

"Certainly disappointing I think for the result," he said after the race. "I fully understand the disappointment for Charles as well, he was first and finishing fourth means that something was wrong in the decision we made.

"So clearly we need to review it and I think we underestimated the speed of the intermediate at that stage and so we could have called a lap earlier for Charles or later on, maybe we should have left him outside on the extreme wet then going on the dry," Binotto explained.

"These are mistakes that may happen but more importantly it is a lesson to learn to try and understand why they happened and I am sure that is a process we will do it," the Swiss-born Italian concluded. (Additional reporting by Agner Carlier)