Formula 1: Charles Leclerc already has as many points as Marcus Ericsson has in his career

By Asher Fair | Jun 26, 2018

LE CASTELLET, FRANCE - JUNE 22: Charles Leclerc of Monaco driving the (16) Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team C37 Ferrari (Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images) /

In the last five Formula 1 races, Charles Leclerc has scored as many points as Marcus Ericsson has scored in his entire Formula 1 career.

Charles Leclerc landed his first career Formula 1 ride with Alfa Romeo Sauber this season driving alongside Marcus Ericsson, who has driven full-time in Formula 1 since the 2014 season and has done so for Sauber since the 2015 season.

Leclerc, the 20-year-old member of the Ferrari Driver Academy who won the 2016 GP3 Series championship and the 2017 Formula 2 championship, started his rookie season off slowly with finishes of 13th, 12th and 19th place in the first three races of the season, which were the Australian Grand Prix, the Bahrain Grand Prix and the Chinese Grand Prix, respectively.

Ericsson, meanwhile, finished in ninth place in the Bahrain Grand Prix and scored two points, his first two points since he finished in ninth in the 2015 Italian Grand Prix, as a result of it. This caused many people to wonder whether or not all of the hype surrounding Leclerc heading into his rookie season would end up being worth it.

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What Leclerc has done since then shows that that hype has been well worth it.

At the end of the third race of the season and the third race of Leclerc’s Formula 1 career, Leclerc had not yet scored any points, as his career-high finish was his 12th place finish in the Bahrain Grand Prix. Meanwhile, Ericsson had racked up six top 10 finishes and 11 points in 79 career Formula 1 races.

In the five races that have taken place since then, which were the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the Spanish Grand Prix, the Monaco Grand Prix, the Canadian Grand Prix and the French Grand Prix, Leclerc finished in sixth, 10th, 18th, 10th and 10th place, respectively, giving him 11 points as a result of the fact that he secured four top 10 finishes in that span.

Meanwhile, Ericsson finished in 11th, 13th, 11th, 15th and 13th in those five races, respectively, giving him no points as a result of the fact that he was unable to secure another top 10 finish, which would have been the seventh top 10 finish of his Formula 1 career, in any one of those five races.

In the last five races, Leclerc racked up as many points as Ericsson, who is driving for the same team and using the same equipment as Leclerc, has over the course of the first 84 races of his Formula 1 career. Leclerc currently sits in a 13th place tie in the Formula 1 driver standings, while Ericsson sits in 17th.

With this in mind, it should come as no surprise to anybody that Leclerc has been long considered Ferrari’s top option for the 2019 season as Kimi Raikkonen’s replacement, and it certainly should come as no surprise to anybody that it was revealed that Ferrari are, in fact, ready to replace Raikkonen with him next year.

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Will Charles Leclerc continue to score more points than Marcus Ericsson this season, and will he pass his career Formula 1 point total? If so, in which race will he pass him? The Austrian Grand Prix is the next race on the 2018 schedule, and that race is scheduled to take place this Sunday, July 1. ESPN2 is set to broadcast that race live from the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria starting at 9:10 a.m. ET.

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