Leclerc gives Ferrari a Grand Slam Australian GP victory after 12 years

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc claimed his second win of the Formula One season with a thumping, pole to lights to flag victory at the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday as Red Bull's World Champion Max Verstappen suffered "deja vu" with another retirement.

This was probably the easiest and the most comfortable race of his career as he literally dominated and toyed with other drivers, having Sergio Perez on P2 behind him for an unbelievable +20.524 seconds.

The Monegasque 24-year-old driver is the first Scuderia Ferrari driver to take a Grand Slam since Fernando Alonso in 2010.

Grand Slam victory is when the driver gets P1 in qualifying, has the fastest lap of the race under his belt, and also wins the race.

In the case of Leclerc, he did not even lose his P1 from the lights to the flag as he led all the 58 laps in Melbourne's Albert Park Race Circuit.

Organizers said an estimated 420,000 people flocked to Albert Park over the race week, making it the biggest attendance for a weekend sporting event in Australia.

This puts Charles Leclerc on top of the Drivers' Championship of this year with a whooping 71 points and George Russell being in second with ONLY 37 points. The two former F2 champions are living their dreams to the fullest as it seems.

Current World Champion Max Verstappen is in 6th position with 25 points as he had to retire his car in both Bahrain and Australia.

Seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton is struggling in 5th position with 28 points in the Drivers' Championship as he is struggling like never before with a Mercedes car this season.

Meanwhile, in the Constructors' Championship, Scuderia Ferrari once again leads the chart with 104 points while Mercedes and Red Bull fill the second and third positions respectively with 65 and 55 points.

Astonishingly this means Leclerc individually has a lead of 6 points over the second-placed team in Constructors' Championship itself.

As soon as only 5 minutes and 2 laps after the start of the race, the safety car was deployed in Melbourne as Scuderia Ferrari's Carlos Sainz lost his balance getting past Mick Schumacher at turn 10. Sainz's race was over even before it began.

This was not the only time the safety car had to be deployed as four-times world champion Sebastian Vettel of Aston Martin crashed his car on lap 24 on his return after missing the opening races due to Covid-19. 

The restart after that second safety was a blockbuster one with Leclerc almost giving away his P1 to Verstappen. That restart was one of the moments to take note of as Leclerc, Max, Russell, Alonso, Perez, Hamilton all, in that order, had the chance to take the first position but somehow the rank remained the same.

On lap 39, the current World Champion Max Verstappen had to retire his car as he was suffering reliability issues and was smelling weird fuels with smoke billowing. The stewards had to immediately use a fire extinguisher before heat could cause any big fire later on.

Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton finished fourth for Mercedes after starting fifth on the grid, having been passed by Russell due to a safety car deployment. This was Russell's second podium in his short career. 

McLaren's Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo finished fifth and sixth respectively as the team showed improvement after a poor start to the season. The homeboy Ricciardo got his first points of the season deservingly in front of his home crowd with a brilliant comeback.

Alex Albon started 19th on the grid but finished 10th, grabbing a first point for Williams after managing his hard tyres virtually to the finish.

The record-breaking Australian Grand Prix 2022 was overall a race to be remembered with a hefty number of battles in the midfield.