In 2022, Charles Leclerc placed second despite his potential to compete with Max Verstappen for the winning spot. His performance was hindered as his team—Ferrari, admitted that they experienced multiple engine failures throughout the year, affecting Leclerc and teammate Carlos Sainz. In fact, the team encountered 9 retirements last year, 3 of them being with Leclerc.
And despite being favoured to challenge Verstappen for the title before the year started, Leclerc has had quite an underwhelming campaign so far. He only finished in the podium three times out of 12 races. Despite this, Leclerc is still one of the favourites to win the grand prix, with several sportsbooks giving him 6.60 odds of winning the race.