In a notebook he writes down all the teachings of the weekend, because if he doesn’t forget them, and he reviews the notes moments before getting in the car to win. Who can with Charles Leclerc? The Monegasque, 24, is at his best. Pole and victory in Bahrain; second in Arabia; pole and victory in Australia. He is the first Ferrari driver to win in Melbourne since Raikkonen, in 2007, the last champion of the Maranello team. The two podiums of Carlos Sainz are blurred after the abandonment of Albert Park, because zero is a slab of lost points, and the belligerence of Verstappen and Red Bull seems tame when the worrying lack of reliability of the Milton Keynes car comes into play.
Throughout the past year, Verstappen had a maximum of 33 points advantage over Hamilton after the ‘sprint’ at Silverstone, although from then on the battle for the title would intensify and they would arrive equal to the last race in Abu Dhabi, with a known outcome. After three races in 2022, the difference between Leclerc and the next ranked in the World Championship, a surprising Russell, is already 34 points. He is 38 compared to the third, Sainz; and 46 more than the Dutchman from Red Bull, his closest rival on the track so far. The gap would be insurmountable were it not for the fact that there are still twenty grand prix left this season.
“I don’t want to think about it too much because the season has just started. I lead by 34 points and that’s fine, it’s a good lead at any point in the season, but I don’t want to think too much about it yet. The Grand Prix in Ímola will be incredible, but we need to approach the race as we have prepared for the previous three, without overreacting or putting extra pressure on ourselves. We have been working extremely well since the season began and we have to continue to do so,” says the World Championship leader, aware that the euphoria of the tifosi next week at the Emilia Romagna GP may cloud Ferrari’s vision.
All in all, Leclerc acknowledges that it is easier to perform on a beast like the F1-75 than to fight for points with the two previous Ferraris: “I have been in this situation in the junior categories (at the head of the championship), but doing it in Formula 1 means a lot, especially after the last few years and even more so with Ferrari. Is incredible. The mentality is different compared to 2020 and 2021, because now I know that I have a car capable of winning and I don’t have to do something spectacular, I just have to do my job”. Fast on one lap (eleven poles) and ferocious in the melee, it seems that he has been in front of him all his life. He already has four victories, two in 2019 and another two quite recently. The account, inevitably , will increase in 2022.