After two years of suffering with a sub-par Ferrari, things can hardly be going any better for Charles Leclerc in 2022. On Saturday the Monegasque driver took Ferrari’s first pole in Australia since Kimi Raikkonen did so his debut season with the team in 2007. Still, there were many that expected second place starting Max Verstappen to mount a serious fight for the win. But Leclerc not only had the pace advantage he also coped extremely well with the re-starts after the safety-car and virtual safety car periods.
For most of the weekend it was clear that Verstappen was not comfortable with his Red Bull. Still, second on the grid and even the second step on the podium would have been acceptable for the reigning champion. But, once again, unreliability reared its head and forced Verstappen into a second retirement in three races. The team has remained tight-lipped on the failure was, but it was most probably mechanically related. The Red Bull powertrains, aka Honda, has proven to be quite problematic so far in 2022 with Alpha Tauri also suffering its own failures in the opening races of the season.
Three races in the championship tables does not make good reading for Red Bull or Max Verstappen. But although Ferrari and Leclerc have gotten off a rollicking start it isn’t the end of the world…yet. Yes, Verstappen currently sits 34 points adrift of Leclerc but there are still 20 races to go and the matter of 544 points up for grabs. There is an awful lot of racing between now and the point where any driver can seriously start to think about the championship.
As predicted in the race preview column Mercedes faired a bit better in Australia than in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. While the Merc pair still finished nearly half-a-minute off the race winner’s pace. Nevertheless, Verstappen’s retirement promoted George Russell onto the podium for the second time in his career while Lewis Hamilton was fourth. The safety car, deployed to enable to clean up of the bits and pieces of Seb Vettel’s Aston Martin, allowed Russell to make a cheap stop and emerged, in P3, ahead of Perez and Hamilton. While Perez easily dispatched of Hamilton, he took P3 off Russell on lap 36. Three laps later Perez would inherit second as Verstappen pulled over his smoking Red Bull at turn 2.
While Perez saved Red Bull’s blushes in second place Mercedes, clearly still struggling, will be pleased with third and fourth. It was a better day too for McLaren as Lando Norris finished fifth ahead of Aussie Daniel Ricciardo in sixth. Esteban Ocon was seventh for Alpine while eighth and ninth place was occupied by Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas and Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly.
As impressive as Leclerc’s performance was the driver of the day was undoubtedly Alex Albon. The Thai driver completed a mammoth 56 lap stint on his hard tyres, pitted on the final lap of the race, and emerged to score the final point in tenth for Williams.
The first retirement of the race, one-and-a-half laps in, was Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard spun in turn 9 and beached the Ferrari in the gravel, bringing out the first safety car of the race. It compounded the Spaniard’s misery who had already made a mistake in his Q3 run to start ninth. At the start of the race Sainz dropped to P14 before spinning out of the race. Afterwards Sainz said he would be hard on himself for the driver errors, but that Ferrari too should take some of the blame for the position he found himself in. It’s somewhat difficult to blame the team though for a driver error in both quali and the race. Carlos Sainz is, for the first time in his career, in a race-winning car. The problem he has is that on the other side of the garage is Charles Leclerc – clearly a driver who is ready and at a level capable of winning the title. But just as Verstappen, or even Mercedes, cannot be ruled out this early on Sainz shouldn’t be either. However, the Spanish driver will have to turn things around very quickly before Ferrari begin to push their support towards Leclerc and relegate Sainz to driver number two.
Charles Leclerc has unquestionably hit a sweet spot in 2022. He is driving this new Ferrari faultlessly and ominously comfortably. It’s a new position for him too to be in the lead of the driver’s championship and the pressure hasn’t ramped up quite yet. But there is a feeling that even if it does Leclerc will be equal to the task.
