The pack is slowly catching up to Red Bull and Max Verstappen. But there’s still a lot of work to do as evidenced by yet another dominant performance by the Dutch lion. But while the 2x champion may have been credited with a clean sweep of the Austrian GP weekend, his closest rival, Ferrari man Charles Leclerc took home a momentous accolade and in doing so actually beat Verstappen on track.

The Monegasque led the Scuderia to a whopping 800th podium finish in Formula 1. And while Leclerc may have finished 2nd behind the Red Bull talisman, was it all part of the great Ferrari masterplan?

Charles Leclerc was the biggest winner at the Austrian GP

The entire weekend was dominated by the comically absurd track limits situation. As much as half the grid was penalized during the race with time penalties and many were penalized after the race, too. But the cherry on top was the eye-watering 47 lap times deleted during Qualifying which prompted Verstappen to shout, “This is a joke. “Honestly, with these track limits, f**** ridiculous,” on his radio comms.

In this on-track battle however, Leclerc seemed to have gotten the better of the Dutchman. According to ex-Ferrari manager, Peter Windsor, “You’ve got to give Charles the benefit of the doubt there in terms of looking after the car and going about as quickly as that car was gonna go.”

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“And yeah, he did look like Charles Leclerc! All credit to him, finished 2nd, and came out of the weekend by my count as the only driver not to get a track limits penalty.”

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Number 800, however, isn’t enough for Leclerc.

Leclerc sets a target on Max Verstappen’s back

The Monacan was finally back on a Formula 1 podium for the first time since Baku. Naturally, he was elated. But the added kick of getting Ferrari’s 800th podium gave him an extra bit of flair to achieve the ultimate goal of beating the Bulls.

He told Sky Sports F1 after the race, “It feels good because yesterday [Saturday] was a very difficult day. But all in all, we did good race management which helped us to get P2. It’s good to be back on the podium, still, a lot of work to do to get the Red Bulls. But we are doing some steps forwards.”

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Can Leclerc and Ferrari catch Verstappen and the Bulls this year?