22 months later, Verstappen-Leclerc is back in the rankings (for now)

Sainz wins, but Leclerc 'returns' to the standings

There Ferrari double in Melbourne has rekindled, at least for a couple of weeks, the hopes of seeing a 2024 Formula 1 season that is less predictable than the one just ended. Waiting to attend the Suzuka race and to understand if really – as prophesied by Helmut Marko – Max Verstappen will return to annihilate the competition, the Drivers' world championship is currently seeing four drivers collected in the space of 11 points.

The main anti-Red Bull standard bearer in these first events was certainly Carlos Sainz, third in Bahrain and first in Australia, but his unfortunate failure in Jeddah means that Verstappen's main pursuer in the ranking is Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque is currently just four points behind the three-time world champion, in a ranking situation that the red #16 has not experienced for a while now 22 months.

Last time as leader: Miami 2022

To find Leclerc so close – indeed, in that case even ahead of Verstappen in the standings – we need to take a step back tobeginning of May 2022. The last race for the driver from the Principality as world championship leader was the Miami GP of that season, where he finished in second place after a splendid battle which pitted him against the champion. orange. In those first five races Leclerc had collected two victories, two second places and a sixth place in Imola, while Verstappen had taken home three successes and two retirements.

The overtaking took place on May 22, 2022with the Leclerc's very unfortunate retirement in a Spanish GP that the Ferrari driver was dominating. Verstappen won that race and jumped ahead of the Monegasque in the championship six lengths, two more than those currently separating the two born in '97. Since then Verstappen has never left the top of the championship, opening a streak of 42 consecutive games (absolute record in the history of F1) spent as leader of the World Championship. A possible new Ferrari exploit in Suzuka could break this monopoly.