Wild Lance Stroll stat highlights Charles Leclerc's 2026 F1 struggles

Charles Leclerc's miserable Formula 1 season reached a new low with a heavy shunt ending his Italian Grand Prix on lap two, but the incident has provided an unwanted statistic.

Leclerc has struggled to match Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari this season, and although the points margin between them had shrunk considerably prior to the summer shutdown, thanks in no small part to the Monegasque's British Grand Prix victory, this has widened once more to 36-points.

While Hamilton is the only driver to have completed every racing lap of the 2026 season, Leclerc has failed to reach the flag on three occasions, although he was a classified finisher nonetheless in Barcelona. 

Step forward, Lance Stroll. So often the butt of jokes made by F1 fans and, as of Monza, the first driver to suffer a century of Q1 eliminations. 

However, despite being without a point this term and hopelessly off the pace for much of the campaign, he is somehow better off than Leclerc in one key area. Remarkably, the unfancied Canadian has crashed only once, while Leclerc has now done so four times.

For Stroll, this crash came on lap 60 of the Monaco Grand Prix, at Anthony Noghes. While the Aston Martin driver insisted it was not a factor, it should be noted that this crash came at an area where the track had been breaking up, and there was a severe amount of pick-up visible on his front-right tyre as he slid into the wall. 

Beyond this, his retirements have been all down to mechanical reasons, although he did take a brief trip through the gravel in practice for the Belgian Grand Prix. As a reference, last year, Stroll crashed seven times - once involving Leclerc at Monaco. 

Back to Leclerc, and prior to his Monza shunt, the Ferrari driver had suffered crashes in qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix, in the race on lap 66 at Monaco - just after Stroll's off - and in qualifying in Barcelona. Comparing the repair bills - for crash damage rather than mechanical fixes - Leclerc has racked up quite the tab. 

Going by estimates, those bills are not kind reading for Leclerc, with a table-topping $1.888 million in crash damages compared to Stroll's $375k, with the Monza shunt the second most expensive of the year. 

The largest bill for a single crash is believed to be Alpine's, after Pierre Gasly's Miami incident, which saw him roll over.