Leclerc’s first points

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On 29 April 2018, Charles Leclerc brought his Sauber home sixth at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku and collected the first World Championship points of his Formula 1 career. He was 20 years old, in his fifth grand prix start, driving for a team that had finished the previous season without a single point. The result was a signal that anyone paying attention in the paddock had little excuse for missing.

The start of the season

Leclerc had arrived in Formula 1 with a reputation built on the Formula 2 championship he had won in 2017, backing up earlier success in junior categories and confirming him as one of the most complete young drivers the Ferrari Driver Academy had developed.

Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc

• Races (starts):173
• Wins:8
• Podiums:51
• Pole positions:27
• Fastest laps:11
• Driver of the Day:19
• World titles:0
• Points (total):1706

Data source: F1DB (GitHub)

The expectation was not that he would immediately challenge for podiums, but that he would learn quickly, show his quality and make the case for a bigger seat when the time came.

Sauber, in their Alfa Romeo-liveried guise of 2018, were not a team expecting to score regularly.

Their 2017 season had been one of the more difficult in the midfield, with the C36 regularly among the slowest cars in the field.

The arrival of a Ferrari engine upgrade and the technical improvements that came with it gave the 2018 car more to work with, but expectations remained modest.

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Leclerc quickly made those expectations look conservative.

In his debut in Australia he showed pace that the car’s recent history had not suggested was available.

Through Bahrain and China he continued to impress, finishing just outside the points in circumstances where a less accomplished rookie might have been further back. By the time the championship reached Baku, the question of when rather than whether he would score was already forming.

The Baku race

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix delivered its usual quota of incidents and reorganisation, with the safety car periods and the Verstappen-Ricciardo collision reshaping the field in ways that created opportunities for drivers willing and able to take them. Leclerc was both.

He navigated the chaos of the Baku street circuit with a composure that belied his experience level, making the right decisions at the right moments across a race that punished hesitation and rewarded clarity. When the chequered flag fell, he was sixth, inside the points for the first time in his Formula 1 career and doing so in a car that many observers would not have predicted could reach that position on merit.

Marcus Ericsson, his more experienced Sauber teammate, retired from the race, leaving Leclerc to carry the result alone. He did so without difficulty.

What the paddock already knew

By Baku, the senior figures in the Formula 1 paddock did not need the result to tell them what Leclerc was. The timing data from qualifying and the race pace from the opening four rounds had already made a persuasive case. What the sixth place did was make the argument publicly and in championship points, converting the private acknowledgement of his ability into something visible on the standings page.

Ferrari were watching closely. They had invested in his development through the junior categories, and the decision they were approaching, whether to bring him into the senior team and alongside whom, was already being shaped by everything he was doing in the Sauber. Baku added to that case with a clarity that was useful.

The trajectory it confirmed

Within weeks of Baku, reports of Ferrari’s interest in Leclerc for the following season were circulating. By the summer, it was confirmed that he would replace Räikkönen at Ferrari for 2019, a decision that placed him alongside Sebastian Vettel and accelerated his career at a speed that even his most optimistic supporters had not fully anticipated.

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The 2019 season at Ferrari produced two victories, in Bahrain and Monza, and a debut year that exceeded almost every external expectation. By 2024, Leclerc was Ferrari’s team leader, a multiple race winner and a driver who had long since moved beyond being described as promising.

The first points in Baku were, in retrospect, the moment the public story caught up with what the data had been saying in private. A 20-year-old in a midfield Sauber finishing sixth in one of Formula 1’s most demanding street circuits was not something that happened by accident, or by chaos alone, or by the particular fortune that Baku dispensed generously to some and withheld cruelly from others. It happened because the driver was already very good, in a way that championships and victories would eventually make undeniable.

FAQ

How many races did it take Leclerc to score his first Formula 1 points?
Leclerc scored his first points in his fifth Formula 1 start, at the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.

What team was Leclerc driving for when he scored his first points?
Leclerc was driving for Sauber, competing under the Alfa Romeo name as a title sponsor, in the 2018 season.

When did Leclerc move to Ferrari?
Leclerc joined Ferrari for the 2019 season, replacing Kimi Räikkönen. He won twice in his debut year with the team, at Bahrain and Monza.

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