As Charles Leclerc crashed out from the lead of the 2022 French Grand Prix, he let out a despairing scream of “No!”
The 2022 French Grand Prix victory was shaping up to be another intriguing battle between Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. Leclerc led Verstappen in the early stages of the race, and the gap between the two rivals was never more than two seconds as they pulled away from the rest of the field.
Verstappen made a surprisingly early pit stop on lap 16. Leclerc did not immediately stop for fresh tyres, which set up the intriguing, strategic battle between the two rival drivers and teams. By stopping for fresh tyres earlier than his rival, Verstappen would almost certainly inherit the race’s lead when Leclerc eventually made his pit stop. However, Ferrari believed that even if this did happen, they would be able to overtake Verstappen on track with fresher tyres later in the race.
Then, just as everyone was trying to work out who had made the correct strategic decision, just two laps later, on lap 18, Leclerc lost the rear of his Ferrari in turn ten and crashed out of the race. In the aftermath of his crash, Leclerc let out a scream of “NO!” on his team radio, letting the watching world know just how painful this accident was to his hopes of winning his first world title.
Verstappen’s superior pace over the rest of the field meant he went on to comfortably win the race and open a 63-point lead over his primary challenger at the top of the Driver’s Championship. With just ten races remaining, and a points difference of only seven between 1st and 2nd place at each race, it is easy to work out the difficult task facing Leclerc if he is to win his first World Championship this year.
Leclerc has often been the faster driver this season, as proved by seven pole-position starts from the 12 races so far. However, he has only gone on to win a race three times, as he has been either let down by his car reliability or poor team strategy and now his own mistakes.
All these together have potentially cost Leclerc at least four race victories and potentially extra points on top of that. Also, on most of those occasions, it has been Max Verstappen who has benefited and claimed the race win.
If Leclerc is to go on and win the 2022 World title, he cannot afford any more errors of his own or the team’s making, and it is hard to see more reliability trouble or mistakes not happening based on the evidence so far.
The 2022 Formula One season could be a case of what might have been for Leclerc and Ferrari, and the anguished cry of “NO!” in France will be replayed plenty of times to remind them of their failures.
