F1 - Australian Grand Prix: Charles Leclerc and Ferrari prance along
The HinduThe Formula One in 2021 got a huge boost because of the intense competition between Red Bull and Mercedes with their respective drivers, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, fighting it out till the last race. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc produced the finest race of his career in the Australian GP, pocketing the maximum of 26 points to extend his lead in the drivers’ standings to 34 even as Red Bull’s Verstappen suffered his second retirement of the season due to mechanical trouble. After slowly building up speed through the weekend, when he was a bit behind Sainz, Leclerc delivered a stunning lap on his last run in qualifying to take pole position by nearly three tenths of a second ahead of Verstappen. The only point at which he was in some sort of trouble was on the restart after a Safety Car period on lap 27 when Verstappen had a good run on him at the start of the lap but the Ferrari’s inherent strength to quickly build up speed out of the corners allowed Leclerc to stave off that potential challenge. The Red Bull is a quick car, maybe not as quick as Ferrari, but has suffered a lot of reliability issues in the three races so far with Verstappen now 46 points behind Leclerc in the standings after scoring just once — a win in Jeddah.