Brembo hit back at Charles Leclerc for blaming the brakes for his Monaco Grand Prix crash

Leclerc, who signed a contract extension with Ferrari ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix, struggled to match teammate Lewis Hamilton and blamed the brakes all weekend.

During the race, the Monegasque was on his way to secure third behind Hamilton as the race was restarted for the first time following Lance Stroll's crash at Turn 19, or what is known as Antony Noghes.

Just before the crash, Leclerc was debating with Ferrari as to why they pitted him behind Hamilton, who stopped for fresh Soft tyres and to serve a 5s penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

Leclerc was hoping to jump the seven-time Formula 1 Champion for second and saw the pit stop as the reason he remained in third.

But then, as soon as the race was restarted, the #16 Ferrari slammed the barriers and brought out another Safety Car. Game over for the local hero.

Immediately, Leclerc radioed, fuming: “Honestly, I'm not even going to take the **** blame. These **** brakes!”

After the race, he persisted with his excuses, saying: “Out of the four brakes, I had three brakes not working. So in a Formula 1 car, it's never a good thing.

“The front-left was working well, the front-right was half working, and the two rear brakes were not working at all. And when I say at all, it's that on data there's no deceleration at all. It's like the calipers were not even in the car.

“As long as I was doing consecutive [laps], it was inconsistent, but there was none of those problems, at least to that extent.

"The problem was the safety car. As soon as I did the safety car, three of my four brakes stopped working. I could never switch them on again; nothing was working anymore.

“I tried to do many actions in the car to try and help it. The only solution I had was to not brake in the last corner, but I would have crashed in Turn 1.

“There was just no solution," Leclerc said.

However, Brembo, Ferrari's F1 brake supplier, did not take Leclerc's comments lightly and issued a statement.

The statement said: “The Brembo Group expresses great astonishment regarding what happened to Charles Leclerc during the Monaco Grand Prix and is very surprised by the statements made by the driver after the race.

“The partnership between Brembo and Scuderia Ferrari has been ongoing for over 50 years and also extends to other brands within the group, such as AP Racing clutches and Ohlins shock absorbers, confirming the solidity and breadth of the collaboration."

Brembo went on: “The company is currently unaware of the causes of the problems encountered by Charles Leclerc and therefore believes it is premature to make definitive technical assessments before analysing the available data.

"In cases like this, it is indeed necessary to examine the telemetry data alongside the team's engineers to pinpoint the exact origin of the incident," the brake supplier's statement concluded.

Leclerc, however, insisted the data backed his explanation of the crash. He added: “It's very clear.

"I think Fred [Vasseur] and Jerome [d'Ambrosio, deputy team principal] saw the data, and I think it's very clear for everyone. I don't think there's any doubt.

“We have the solution in-house, and I'll go to the Lewis configuration from the next race onward,” Leclerc concluded.

Which begs the question: Why didn't Leclerc use Hamilton's configuration in Monaco? After all, he was not happy with the brakes since Canada... (Additional reporting by Agnes Carlier)