2023: the worst start with Ferrari
The retirement due to technical problems at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir and the 7th place scored in the following race in Jeddah is not only a disappointing start to the 2023 Formula One season for Charles Leclerc, but also points to another negative statistic for the Monegasque and the Maranello team: with just six points secured in two races, Charles Leclerc has reluctantly set a negative record based on the points collected since he has been with Ferrari, (since the 2019 Formula 1 season).
In fact, Charles had never scored such a low total of points in the first two races of the Formula One world championship. If we exclude his debut in Formula 1, which took place back in 2018, when he was racing for Sauber and did not finish in the points in the first rounds of the championship, Charles Leclerc had always done better than this since wearing the Maranello race suit.
The first two years
In 2019, his debut season in Ferrari, Charles Leclerc ended his first race in red with a fifth place finish at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne, to then take the maiden podium of his F1 career at Sakhir, finishing in third position. A solid performance that ensured him a total of 26 points, eight more than those won the following year. In a world championship marked by the Covid-19 emergency, the Monegasque took second place in Austria, only to then retire in the following race, which took place at the same circuit but was officially called the Styrian GP, for an overall score of 18 points.
The last two seasons
The start of the 2020 Formula 1 championship was not particularly brilliant, with two positions in the points zone but in both cases far from the podium. In Bahrain and at Imola, the Monegasque finished sixth and fourth respectively, with the negative record of 18 points, which unfortunately was now surpassed. In opposition to this, the previous World Championship he was instead the protagonist of his best start ever as a Ferrari driver, with victory in Sakhir and 2nd place at the Jeddah circuit. Two results that saw Charles Leclerc not only with a solid total of 45 points, but even provisionally leading the world championship, later won by Max Verstappen.
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Below is the summary of Charles Leclerc’s rankings in Ferrari after the first two races of each F1 season.
2019: 26 points
2020: 18 points
2021: 18 points
2022: 45 points
2023: 6 points
The Ferrari SF-23 has clearly not lived up to expectations so far, but Charles Leclerc’s ranking is obviously affected by Sakhir’s retirement and the incredible combination of technical failures in terms of control units which forced him to already introduce a third control unit at the Jeddah Corniche circuit in Saudi Arabia with a consequent penalty on the starting grid of ten positions, which sent him from the second to the twelfth place. In short, a ranking too bad to be true.
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