On the basis of pure performance, there has been very little to choose between Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen this season. But on the basis of championship points, the gap is already vast.
With three of this year’s 23 races complete, Leclerc has a 46-point lead over Verstappen — a margin larger than either Verstappen or Lewis Hamilton had over one another at any point in last year’s championship battle.
The reason for the gap is clear. Two retirements from second place — the most recent of which came on Lap 38 of Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix — means Verstappen has sacrificed at least 36 points to Leclerc through reliability in just three races. Give him those back, plus a point for fastest lap here or there, and the gap between the two would be in single figures.
The missed opportunities are not lost on either Verstappen or Red Bull.
“We are already miles behind,” Verstappen said after retiring on Sunday. “I don’t even want to think about the championship fight at the moment; it is more important to finish races.
“Of course, today was in general a bad day again. Not really having the pace, I was just managing my tyres to bring it to the end. It looked like an easy P2 anyway and I knew I could not fight Charles, so there was no point in trying to put pressure on him. We didn’t even finish the race, so it is pretty frustrating and unacceptable.”
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner added: “It is totally understandable, his frustration. That was a really, really disappointing result not to finish the race.
“I mean, we don’t know what the issue is yet. I don’t think it’s actually engine related. I think it might be a fuel issue, but we need to get the car back, we need to be able to look at what’s exactly happened.”
But Verstappen’s misfortune should not take anything away from the performance of Ferrari and Leclerc this year. Even before Verstappen’s retirement, Leclerc had the…
Source : espn
