Top 3 drives from Charles Leclerc in the 2023 F1 season

The 2023 F1 season was not the best for Charles Leclerc. The Ferrari driver headed into the season with hopes of fighting for the title but that did not happen. The car was just not up to the mark and that meant any hopes of him fighting for the title were dead from the very first race.

To make things worse, Leclerc had a somewhat eventful season. The Ferrari was just too unpredictable for the drivers to have any kind of confidence in it and there were far too many cases of Leclerc binning the car in qualifying.

There were, however, to Leclerc's credit some splendid races where he stood out as compared to everyone else. These were the races where he truly shined and showed why he belonged in the upper echelons of the F1 drivers on the grid.

In this feature, we will be taking a look at his top three drives for the 2023 F1 season.

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Charles Leclerc's top three drives in 2023

#1 Baku

It was still early in the season when Charles Leclerc turned up at Baku and showed that Red Bull (at least in qualifying) could be beaten.

Ferrari tended to be a bit in qualifying as compared to races and it showed as well in Baku where Leclerc found the sweet spot early over a lap and picked up pole position for both the sprint and the main race.

While the race panned out as many would have expected with Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen ultimately gaining ground on Leclerc on Sunday and getting ahead, the Monégasque still put together a remarkable race weekend in Baku.

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#2 Las Vegas

This was arguably a race that Charles Leclerc and Ferrari deserved to win. The car looked brilliant on track and drove superbly. There weren't too many shortcomings you could find either as Leclerc will regain the lead of the race from Max Verstappen after losing it on the first lap.

Vegas was one of the very rare races of the season where Leclerc had the race pace to compete at the front, as in the past, it only tended to be competitive in qualifying. Unfortunately for Leclerc, the ill-timed safety car took away all of the advantage that the Ferrari driver had accumulated early in the race.

To make things worse, it handed both Red Bull drivers fresh hard tires compared to his somewhat older hard tires. Having said that, Leclerc was still able to salvage some positives from that race weekend as he ended up taking P2 in the race from Sergio Perez on the very last lap of the race. He was truly the driver of the weekend in Las Vegas.

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#3 Abu Dhabi

Away from the glare at Abu Dhabi as the season came to a close, Charles Leclerc had a task at hand in the final race of the season. He had to help his team secure P2 in the championship against Mercedes.

This is how Leclerc went about trying to secure P2 for Ferrari in Abu Dhabi. It all began in qualifying with a stunning lap that beat the McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri and George Russell's Mercedes to secure a front-row start. That too in a Ferrari that never seemed compatible with the track.

Then on Sunday, he made sure he didn't battle Max Verstappen too hard at the start of the race as the Red Bull was just too quick for the track. Then when Leclerc knew he had to ensure Russell didn't finish on the podium and he finished P2 as well to ensure that A Ferrari P2, he let Sergio Perez pass him and tried to build a five-second gap where the Mexican could slot in after his penalty.

The race weekend in Abu Dhabi saw Leclerc firing on all cylinders and in complete command of everything around him.