(Motorsport-Total.com) – The Miami Grand Prix is coming up this weekend. This means that it has now been about four years since a Ferrari driver led the Formula 1 Drivers’ World Championship. The last time this happened was at the Miami Grand Prix in 2022.
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In the list of the last Formula 1 World Championship leaders (click through our photo gallery here!), Leclerc has now slipped to sixth place. Since the Miami GP in early May 2022, five other drivers have led the World Championship.
Ferrari started the new season almost perfectly under the then completely new Formula 1 regulations. Leclerc won two of the first three races and led the championship up to and including the fifth race of the season in Florida.
However, at the sixth race of the season in Spain, Leclerc retired with a power unit problem, which allowed Red Bull driver Max Verstappen to take over the championship lead with a win in Barcelona – and he never gave it up until the end of the season.
The last 25 championship leaders in Formula 1
That was almost four years ago now. Ferrari last experienced a longer dry spell in the drivers’ championship between 2012 and 2017. Fernando Alonso last led the championship for the Scuderia at the Japanese Grand Prix in October 2012.
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The next championship leader in red was only Sebastian Vettel again at the season opener in March 2017 in Australia – almost four and a half years later.
Incidentally, Lewis Hamilton’s last championship lead is even further back now. The second Ferrari driver alongside Charles Leclerc last led the World Championship after the Russian Grand Prix 2021, when he was still driving for Mercedes.
The race in Sochi took place on September 26, 2021 – so more than four and a half years ago now. In our photo gallery, Hamilton is now only in seventh place and thus behind teammate Leclerc.
In total, 20 different drivers have led the Formula 1 World Championship so far this millennium. Our list therefore goes back to the 1990s.
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