Kimi Räikkönen left the track at the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix after a mechanical failure and went to his yacht to join friends drinking champagne and beer. Fernando Alonso, in 2015 at Interlagos, responded to a qualifying breakdown by relaxing in a lawn chair and sunbathing while eyes closed. Charles Leclerc was spun into a wall on lap 53 of the 2025 Dutch Grand Prix and subsequently sat on dunes, striking a distant pose. Leclerc projects melancholic, haunted imagery shaped by his time within the Ferrari ecosystem. The episodes exemplify calm, unconventional responses to race retirements.
Though history no doubt dates back before 2006, we have to start somewhere, and we may as well start with Kimi Raikkonen. After retiring from that year's Monaco Grand Prix after his car suffered a mechanical failure, Raikkonen walked off the track and, still wearing his helmet and racesuit and all, skipped out on the McLaren garage and instead journeyed to his own yacht, joining his "best mates from Finland, who've consumed their own weight in champagne and beer."
Fast-forward nine years to 2015, and Fernando Alonso, also miserably at McLaren, yet again innovated in the realm of suffering a mechanical issue and really wanting to be somewhere else. After his car broke down during qualifying at Interlagos Circuit, Alonso found his way to a lawn chair, where he peacefully folded his hands in his lap and tilted his head back, eyes closed, to bask in the sunshine.
Leclerc has his own charms, separate from Raikonnen and Alonso. He can give, depending on the moment, the same vibes as an easily beleaguered haunted doll, or some mournful beast trapped in a horror movie, which just happens when you spend your entire career so far within the Ferrari ecosystem. But his forebears have left such oppressively popular innovations in the field of mournful retirements; what was left for him to do?
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