The first winner of the 2022 Formula 1 season at the Bahrain Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc, played a “little joke” on his engineers a few seconds before crossing the finish line and celebrating the first victory of the campaign, with the driver Monegasque breaking a sweat in his team’s garage on the last lap of the race.
As he reached Turn 13 on his final lap, Leclerc radioed alarmingly: “There’s something strange with the engine!” This message was followed by a long silence from his race engineer, the Spaniard Xavi Marcos, who a few moments later and after looking at the numbers, realized that everything was fine and replied “Got it!”.
Immediately afterwards, Leclerc began to laugh and responded with “I’m kidding”, before crossing the finish line at the Sakhir Circuit, crowning himself the first leader of the 2022 Formula 1 World Championship.
Looking back, Leclerc repeated the same words as at the 2019 Bahrain Grand Prix. A race in which he was heading for victory when he suddenly suffered an engine problem that deprived him of this success, finishing third, a podium with a very bitter taste.
A few races later, the Monegasque claimed his first two wins in Formula 1, at Spa-Francorchamps and then at Monza. Since then, Leclerc had not returned to the top of the podium. Something that he was finally able to do in Sakhir this weekend after first taking pole position and then the victory.
In this way, Charles Leclerc was placed in the first position of the championship for the first time in his career. Ferrari , meanwhile, claimed its first one-two since the Singapore GP nearly three seasons ago, in what was Sebastian Vettel’s last win to date.
“I made a little joke on the radio on the last lap, saying there was something wrong with the engine, and I’m sure some of the engineers were close to having a heart attack,” Leclerc acknowledged on Sunday after the Bharein Grand Prix. “But everything was fine. I’m happy that this time we were able to get that victory,” concluded the smiling Ferrari driver.
