Monaco’s favourite son suffered yet another hugely disappointing weekend at his home Grand Prix in the Principality. At a circuit where pole position almost guarantees a race win, Charles Leclerc arrived this year boasting three pole positions in the last five seasons, but only a single victory to show for it.
And disaster would strike again seeing Charles crash out of the Grand Prix with under ten laps remaining and a comfortable podium finish in sight. The Monegasque driver then lashed out at Scuderia Ferrari and their long-term brake supplier, Brembo. Leclerc firmly stated he would take no personal blame for the high-speed collision with the armco barrier at the final corner of the circuit.
Leclerc described the entire weekend, and the ongoing technical situation he has faced since the previous round in Montreal, as a “nightmare.” He claimed the core issue with his car became significantly worse during the latter stages of the Grand Prix.
Charles Leclerc: “I don’t know how much I can go into the details, but… it’s just not acceptable. The issues I have faced with my brakes have been… it’s not that it’s difficult, it’s that in this particular moment, it’s just impossible. Out of the four brakes, I had three brakes not working… on data there’s no deceleration at all. It’s like the callipers were not on the car… The only thing I can say is that we have a solution in-house, and I’ll go to Lewis’s configuration from the next race onwards.”
Brembo Fires Back with Extraordinary Public Retaliation
Just hours after the checkered flag fell, Brembo—who have supplied the Ferrari Formula 1 team for more than half a century—issued an incredibly defensive public statement:
*”Brembo Group is really surprised by the statements made by Charles Leclerc after F1’s Monaco Grand Prix. The partnership between Brembo and Scuderia Ferrari has continued for more than 50 years and also extends to other brands within the Group, including AP Racing clutches and Öhlins dampers, confirming the strength and breadth of this long-standing collaboration.
At present, the company does not know the causes of the issues experienced by Charles Leclerc and therefore considers it premature to draw definitive technical conclusions before the available data has been analysed. In cases such as this, it is necessary to examine the telemetry data together with the team’s engineers in order to accurately determine the origin of the incident.”*
For a Tier-1 supplier to react to a Ferrari driver in such a public fashion is remarkable in itself. It raises major questions over the future of a relationship that was already heavily criticised by Lewis Hamilton when he joined the Scuderia ahead of the 2025 season.
The Roots of Friction: Hamilton’s Technical Rebellion
One of Hamilton’s most significant hurdles when trying to find his feet at the Maranello-based team was that the braking systems designed by Brembo felt fundamentally different from the Carbon Industries (CI) designs he had utilised for decades at McLaren and Mercedes.
He claimed his signature driving style—characterised by extremely late, heavy initial braking paired with aggressive steering inputs—clashed heavily with the specific feel and bite characteristics of the standard Ferrari-Brembo setup. The issue quickly became a primary talking point in the paddock, exposing a fundamental difference in how Hamilton and Leclerc interact with the left pedal.
The Two Braking Profiles Compared:
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The Brembo Profile: Offers an incredibly sharp, immediate initial “bite” when the driver first strikes the pedal. Having raced for almost his entire F1 career with Ferrari, Leclerc knew nothing other than the Brembo way of braking, utilising early, sharp deceleration to dynamically pivot the car’s weight distribution, relying on less steering angle to rotate the rear end.
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The Carbon Industries Profile: Provides a much more linear, progressive deceleration. Hamilton has mastered a style that relies heavily on trailing off the brakes deep into the apex (trail-braking). With the standard Brembo discs, that sharp initial response and subsequent temperature spikes caused the unpredictable front-axle lockups and mid-corner snaps that plagued Hamilton throughout 2025.
To make matters worse, Ferrari’s technical team aggressively channels brake duct heat to manage front tyre temperatures. This setup pushed the Brembo material into a narrow, highly erratic operating window that Hamilton found nearly impossible to predict from corner to corner.
The Switch to the “Hamilton Configuration”
TJ13 has been informed that behind the scenes, Hamilton relentlessly pressed the Ferrari management team to allow him to switch out certain brake components to ease his corner entry difficulties. Because of the team’s historic relationship with Brembo, this was initially resisted, with engineering teams attempting certain compromise pad solutions that ultimately failed to resolve the issue.
However, after suffering further braking issues during pre-season testing in Bahrain, Hamilton was finally granted his request. From the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai, Hamilton’s car was quietly converted to a hybrid braking setup: the Brembo callipers were retained, but the discs themselves were custom-made by Carbon Industries.
The impact on Hamilton’s performance was immediate. He qualified ahead of Leclerc in both Sprint and Grand Prix qualifying sessions. To put that into context, Hamilton had previously lost the 2025 intra team qualifying battle to his teammate by an overwhelming score of 19 to 5. The tally in 2026 currently stands at 3-3.
The 2026 Engine Transition Complicates the Issue
The “Hamilton Configuration” now takes on a massive narrative arc following the Monaco Grand Prix weekend. While Hamilton thrived on his custom setup to secure P2, Leclerc endured a nightmare weekend on the standard Brembo material, culminating in an erratic Q3 crash at Tabac in qualifying, and a spectacular, race-ending crash on Sunday at the final corner, Anthony Noghes.
With the all-new 2026 F1 power units, braking has become exponentially more complex for the drivers. The hybrid system performs the initial slow-down via heavy MGU-K harvesting the moment the throttle is released, followed by a complex software transition where the mechanical brakes of the car take over.
It would seem the sharp, immediate bite characteristics of the Brembo brakes are not smoothly suited to this electronic-to-mechanical transition, regularly taking Leclerc by surprise. His comments after Saturday’s qualifying session were highly revealing:
Charles Leclerc: “I’ve been struggling recently… It’s been very bad since FP1. Already in FP1, I felt I was really, really struggling. At the moment, it’s a bit of a discovery whenever I get on the brakes. I don’t want to go too much into the details, and I won’t go into more detail than what I’ve said. But it’s been extremely inconsistent, and I’ve just been struggling massively.
“The fact that on braking I just don’t really know where to brake still… I wouldn’t put the mistake only on that, it’s for sure a combination of things. Sometimes it’s only me; I think today it’s a bit more than only me.”
Leclerc went on to confirm that certain components on his car were the root of the problem and that everything would be changed ahead of the next round in Barcelona. Whether the 50-year-old relationship between Ferrari and Brembo is now fundamentally broken remains to be seen. But the shock defensive statement from the Italian manufacturer suggests that behind the scenes in Maranello, the garden is definitely not smelling of roses.
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A.J. Hunt is Senior Editor at TJ13, where Andrew oversees editorial standards and contributes to the site’s Formula 1 coverage. A career journalist with experience in both print and digital sports media, Andrew trained in investigative journalism and has written for a range of European sports outlets.
At TJ13, Andrew plays a central role in shaping the site’s output, working across breaking news, analysis, and long-form features. Andrew’s responsibilities include fact-checking, refining editorial structure, and ensuring consistency in reporting across a fast-moving news cycle.
Andrew’s work focuses particularly on the intersection of Formula 1 politics, regulation, and team strategy. Andrew closely follows developments involving the FIA, team leadership, and driver market dynamics, helping to provide context behind the sport’s biggest stories.
With experience covering multiple seasons of Formula 1’s modern hybrid era, Andrew has developed a detailed understanding of how regulatory changes and competitive shifts influence the grid. Andrew’s editorial approach prioritises clarity and context, aiming to help readers navigate complex developments within the sport.
In addition to editorial duties, Andrew is particularly interested in how media narratives shape fan perception of Formula 1, and how reporting can balance speed with accuracy in an increasingly digital news environment.
