Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc went from being a race winner to a race retiree in the space of one Formula 1 Grand Prix.
At Canada, there was inclement weather but there was also a strange power unit issue for the team in red.
Having won his home race event at Monaco recently, something he owed to his fans and his own self for quite some time, Leclerc would have wanted to continue the winning touch or secure another podium at the very least in the race at Montreal in Canada.
However, it wasn’t to be as perhaps owing to a power issue in the engine of his SF-24, the man from Monaco went pointless at the recent Canadian Grand Prix having to race retire eventually.
Having said that, it was no easy day for the Scuderia stable at Canada as the winner of the 2024 Australian Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz too retired a few laps after Leclerc registered a DNF; the Spaniard shunted his car onto the grass on a tricky turn amid extremely wet conditions, thereby sustaining damage to his car, something from which he could never quite recover. Very recently, Leclerc explained his chaotic and ultimately sad Canadian Grand Prix that saw Ferrari emerge sans any points whatsoever.
The Monegasque would explain-
“Obviously, we were losing a second, I mean, at first, I think it was six tenths, but then some laps It was 1.2s, sometimes it was 1.5s, sometimes it was one second. So every time I was going on power, I didn’t know what I will get, and that was, first of all, very difficult to drive, very frustrating because in the straight, I would get overtaken by everybody, and very annoying because I had like 10 or 15 switches par lap to change to try and reset everything and to try to make it to work.”
But how the Canadian Grand Prix result impacts Charles Leclerc is that his current gap to table topping Max Verstappen, the defending world champion, is about 56 points. It ought to be noted that following Leclerc’s triumph on the streets of Monte Carlo, he had brought down the gap to 31 points to the championship leader.
Thus, emerging sans any points whatsoever is far from an ideal scenario where both Charles Leclerc and his Ferrari stable are concerned.
Having said that, Leclerc is appreciative of the fact that in the current scheme of affairs in Formula 1, there has been a renewed sense of competitiveness with Ferrari and McLaren putting up a strong fight to the usually dominant Red Bull. In a recent media interaction, Charles Leclerc also shared the fact that he would any day prefer a Ferrari dominance on the grid. Now that was actually last evident in the 2000’s thanks to Michael Schumacher’s invincibility.
Can Ferrari of the present day reach any close to that magnanimous era remains the big question for now?