Data proves ‘bad luck’ is the true reason behind Charles Leclerc’s disastrous 2023 season
Charles Leclerc has had a series of utter misfortune in the 2023 season with his Ferrari SF-23 racecar.
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When Charles Leclerc was brought into Ferrari, the bright-eyed Monegasque gave enormous hopes to the Tifosis. They had even hailed him as the Golden Boy who would finally bring the Maranello outfit their first World Championship since Kimi Raikkonen received it in 2007. As the oldest and the most successful team in F1 history, Ferrari’s performance in the recent years has unfortunately not been at par with their reputation. But Leclerc was thought to be the Messiah who would finally bring the team back to the top spot on the Championship Standings.
As it looks right now, 4 long years have passed since Charles Leclerc entered the Forza Ferrari in 2019. And till now, he has only been able to secure 5 Grand Prix wins, much less a Championship victory. And the fears have now started setting in that Charles might not Ferrari’s Messiah but another unlucky racer who, despite being talented, would never see the golden Championship trophy in his entire Formula 1 career. And his recent incident at the Brazilian Grand Prix where he had to retire before even starting the race proves this fact.
During the formation lap in Brazil, Charles Leclerc’s SF-23 rammed into the barriers at the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace. This caused the 26-year-old to land a DNS (Did Not Start). And this incident got the fans talking about the string of misfortunes that Charles has encountered in this season which is set to end after two more races. And one of them unearthed some terrible statistics that show that Charles Leclerc really has had some surprisingly bad luck in 2023.
X user claims that Charles Leclerc’s 2023 season has been scarred with DNFs and penalties
One of the fans who has scrutinized the entire records of Charles Leclerc’s 2023 F1 season has given the data he has gathered till now. It shows that Charles Leclerc has had some terrible DNFs (Did Not Finish) and also a few penalties. He even got disqualified from the United States GP alongwith Lewis Hamilton only a couple of weeks ago. And in the races where he did not face any difficulties and did not have to retire, he has gotten incredible results with P3 and P4 finishes. At the Austrian GP, even though he got a penalty during the Sprint, he managed to get his highest finish in 2023 with a P2 spot.
The start of the season, according to the data, looks absolutely ghastly for Charles Leclerc. He had a DNF in Bahrain and again one in Australia. At Jeddah, he incurred a penalty that made him drop to seventh on the grid. His first breakout performance came in Baku where he earned a P3 finish. And that was again followed by some below-par results in Monaco, Miami, and Spain. In Canada, he even encountered some problems with the Ferrari strategy during the Qualifying.
However, Charles Leclerc’s performances on Saturdays have improved significantly over the last few races. He got a pole position at the United States GP but was unfortunately disqualified from the main race. He also pulled up second to Max Verstappen at the recently held Brazilian GP but he could not convert that to a promising result as he had an accident before even starting the Main Race.
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Riddhi Mondal
(1821 Articles Published)