'We were extremely strong', says Leclerc after Australia win

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc was delighted by the way that they swept to victory in Sunday's Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne.

The Monegasque led all 58 laps of the race after starting from pole position and fending off an early attack from Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

Verstappen continued to press as hard as possible and had his best chance to strike when the race resumed after a safety car for Sebastian Vettel's accident on lap 22, but was ultimately thwarted by a technical failure on the RB18.

Verstappen's retirement means that Leclerc is now well ahead of all his rivals in the drivers standings with 71 point, meaning that dreams of winning the championship are beginning to feel possible.

• Read also: Leclerc sails to victory in Melbourne as Verstappen retires

"Obviously we only had the third race," he pointed out when asked about the title battle by the media in parc ferme. "It's difficult to think about the championship, but to be honest we've got a very strong car.

"A very reliable car too," he added, mindful of the fact that Verstappen has now retired in two of the first three races of 2022 putting him 46 points behind in the standings.

"For now we've always been there, so I hope it continues like this," he said. "If it does then we probably have chances for the championship."

"Obviously [this] makes me smile after the last two years that have been difficult for the team and for myself, so it's great to be back in this position."

Even before Verstappen's retirement the race had looked a relatively calm affair with Leclerc not under the same pressure he had been in Bahrain and Jeddah.

"It's the first one where we controlled the gap a little bit," Leclerc agreed. "Especially on the race pace, we were extremely strong.

"What a car today!" he continued. "I mean, I did a good job all weekend, but it was not possible without the car this weekend.

"Tyres felt great. From the first lap to the last lap, we were managing the tyres extremely well," he added. "I'm just so happy."

Unfortunately it was a different story for Leclerc's team mate Carlos Sainz, who suffered a disastrous end to qualifying when Ferrari struggled with its starter system leaving him ninth on the grid.

Opting to start the race on the hard tyre, Sainz made a last-minute steering wheel change on the grid resulting in the car only for the car to go into anti-stall at the start of the race.

He then lost multiple positions having started on the cold hard compound tyres, before finally running off into the gravel where the F1-75 became beached and triggered an early safety car.

“We went backwards on the hard tyre and then with the rush of wanting to come back through the field, I made a driving mistake," he admitted.

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter