“Anything can happen” - Carlos Sainz determined to end Charles Leclerc’s Monaco curse on Sunday

Ferrari's Carlos Sainz is looking forward to a race win for his teammate Charles Leclerc at the 2024 F1 Monaco Grand Prix. The latter will start the race from pole position with Sainz in P3.

The Saturday sessions at Monaco came to an end with Leclerc topping the time sheets during qualifying. He will start his home race from the pole position, looking forward to ending the "Monaco curse" and emerging victorious in the streets of Monte Carlo.

Leclerc's Monaco curse is a term coined by fans that emerged after the obstacles he faced throughout his F1 career to secure a victory in his home race. He crashed out in 2018 with Sauber and retired early from the race in 2019. Monaco was canceled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but in 2021 he qualified on pole. However, couldn't start the race because of a gearbox failure, and a strategy blunder took him out of the podium position in 2022. Last season, he finished P6.

With the pole position this season, there could be a chance. His teammate, Sainz is hoping for him to win, too, as he said after the session:

"I'm not entirely happy because I wish I could have been fighting for pole position but the truth is Charles has been doing an outstanding job. The car has been amazing all weekend and he managed to extract the most from it, so I'm happy for him."

Sainz further stated that the car looks in good shape for the race and his priority is fixed to "win with Charles":

"I looked very quick on the long runs. For some reason I've bee struggling on the short runs but the long runs have been better. I'm confident tomorrow the pace on the long run will be good. It's just a matter of track position here and we lost it with not a great Qualy position. It's Monaco. Anything can happen and we will give it our best shot. The priority will be to win with Charles Leclerc tomorrow."

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Charles Leclerc aiming for a '1-2' Ferrari finish at Monaco with teammate Carlos Sainz

Ferrari looks strong this season and already achieved a 1 - 2 finish at Australia earlier when Carlos Sainz capitalized on Max Verstappen's DNF and took the victory. Charles Leclerc finished second in that race which gave the team a boost in the championship.

Leclerc aims to repeat that success with his teammate but this time he aims to be the winner. Given that it happens, this will not only be his first home victory but also his first podium in the principality. In his post-qualifying interview, he said:

"I need a good launch off the grid, then once we do that, hopefully Carlos can have a great start and follow me into Turn One. "If we are one-two, we can manage that as a team. That would be the perfect scenario. But whatever happens we need to bring that victory home."

Leclerc has remained competitive this season, finishing within the top four in all of the races so far. He stands second in the driver's world championship. Ferrari also stand in the same place in the championship.