Although Charles Leclerc took pole in Monaco, his crash at the end of Q3 is drawing far more attention than the massive improvement Ferrari has made. As several fans indulged themselves in a debate of it being intentional or not, Fernando Alonso gave his opinion.

The Spaniard, who finished P17 on Saturday, brought back memories of the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix, which hosted the infamous “Rascassegate” scandal. Drawing comparisons between 2006 and yesterday to give his opinion, he points out the only debate that should be going on right now.

Fernando Alonso believes Leclerc’s crash is different from 2006

In 2006, Monaco witnessed the “Rascassgate” scandal, where another Ferrari driver, Michael Schumacher stopped at Rascasse during qualifying. This brought out yellow flags, which stopped Fernando Alonso from going for a potential pole position.

Alonso believes that apart from Max Verstappen, no one was improving their lap times before Leclerc’s crash yesterday. In addition, he thinks that the 2006 incident was worse since several drivers were putting on purple sector times.

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The Spaniard said, “I think it was Verstappen on the purple first sector, that was the only one. All the others, they were coming worse. So I don’t think that there is a big drama on this.

“In 2006 it was very different, I guess. It was a lot of people coming on purple and it was not a crash.”

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The only debate is if the car can be repaired and start on pole: Alonso

With Alonso believing the crash was unintentional, he thinks there should only be one debate at the moment: Can Ferrari fix the damage on Leclerc’s car?

“The only debate can be if that car can be repaired in parc fermé and go on pole position,” said Alonso.

Although he took pole position, Leclerc‘s crash caused potential gearbox damage. In the post-race interviews, Leclerc admitted to being worried about the amount of damage done to his car.

Should a new gearbox be fitted to Leclerc’s car, he will take a five-place grid penalty in today’s race. This would mean that he will start the race in sixth, with Verstappen moving to pole. However, Ferrari’s initial update looks positive for the Monegasque.

Can Ferrari win the race against time to keep Leclerc on pole?