Charles Leclerc will have more medical checks after his heavy Monza crash. Image: XPB Images
The Ferrari driver escaped serious injury after losing control of his SF-26 at high speed through the Parabolica on Lap 2 and slamming into the barriers, bringing out a red flag at Monza.
Leclerc climbed from the car unaided and was taken to the circuit medical centre, where no injuries were detected, but later revealed his right eye had initially caused concern.
“The neck was OK, it was just the vision a little bit at first,” Leclerc said.
“The right eye was not showing me great vision, but now it’s all good, so that’s the thing I was most worried of getting off the car.
“Then after that everything, a bit of pain here and there, which is normal after a crash like this, so nothing more.”
While his vision had returned to normal, the Monegasque confirmed he would undergo further examinations before next weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix at the new Madring circuit.
“I think I’ll have quite a few additional checks that we still have to do on my side, probably tonight and tomorrow, to make sure that I’ll be fully fine for Madrid,” he added.
“It should be the case, but better be safe than sorry.”
Leclerc was defending from Oscar Piastri when the rear of his Ferrari broke away through the Parabolica, having initially appeared to lose control after clipping the kerb, ending his home race after only two laps.
He suggested an unusual change in the car’s power delivery may have played a role, although he was reluctant to draw conclusions before Ferrari had examined the data.
“Then for the crash itself, I went on throttle – on the first lap it felt kind of weird, I had to go back off and on throttle,” he said.
“On that second lap, I tried to do the same thing but, I don’t know, it just felt a little bit weird, so we’ll look into it.”
The retirement completed a nightmare opening to Ferrari’s home grand prix after Leclerc had already been involved in a tense first-lap battle with teammate Lewis Hamilton.
The pair started third and fourth and went wheel-to-wheel through the opening chicane, with Hamilton forced into the gravel at Turn 2 and dropping several positions.
Hamilton immediately complained over the radio that Leclerc had pushed him off, while Leclerc later conceded the Ferrari pair had allowed their fight to become too aggressive.
“With Lewis it was a way too close into Turn 1 and unfortunately in Turn 2 – I don’t know if we had contact or whatsoever,” he explained.
“I was quite a lot on the inside curve and tried to make the corner, which I didn’t do it tight enough, and then I obviously only saw in the mirrors what happened which is never what you want between two cars, between two cars of the same team.”
Leclerc later went further, admitting the teammates had crossed the line in their approach to the opening corners.
“Here it’s true, though, that we went too far, I think, [with] Lewis in Turn 1. Then in Turn 2 I tried to do the tightest corner possible, but that was just not enough, and doing it here is not good.”
Hamilton took a firmer view of the incident, insisting he had earned the right to more space after getting ahead at the second part of the chicane.
“I was ahead in Turn 2, by the apex, I was ahead. There was no ‘we’ in it,” Hamilton said.
“Afterwards we will take it offline and talk about it.”
The seven-time world champion, who recovered to finish sixth, also called for Ferrari to establish clearer rules of engagement between its drivers.
“I think it comes down to rules of engagement,” Hamilton said.
“When I was at Mercedes, we had written rules of engagement.
“We never really, really had it too bad. There was a moment between me and Nico [Rosberg] a couple of times, but more often not, it was good.
“Here, there are no rules. We need to address that.”
Hamilton admitted the clash had immediately compromised Ferrari’s race before Leclerc’s accident made an already difficult afternoon considerably worse.
“It was very bad for the team, and obviously it put us way back in positions,” he said.
“I just tried to reset, and I was like, ‘okay, I’ll try and catch up, and then obviously we had to stop.
“I think I put the wrong tyres on, probably.”