Hamilton scoops victory after Leclerc suffers heartbreaking F1 failure

The 2019 Bahrain Grand Prix was just the 23rd race start for Charles Leclerc in F1, and his second after receiving a promotion to Ferrari in place of Kimi Raikkonen.

A stellar junior career with GP3 and F2 titles had marked Leclerc out as the next big thing for the Scuderia, with the Monegasque being the first-ever graduate of the Ferrari Driver Academy to race for it in F1.

Unofficially, he was also being benchmarked against his team-leader Sebastian Vettel, with doubts just starting to creep into the back of Maranello minds if Vettel was truly the man to deliver the titles back after misses in 2017, and a Vettel-inspired loss of the 2018 titles to Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes.

The SF-90 was tipped to be the car to beat after pre-season testing, but Ferrari turned up and received a drubbing in Australia as Mercedes strolled to a one-two with Vettel fourth and Leclerc fifth, 57s behind winner Valtteri Bottas, but come Bahrain, Ferrari was back on form. 

Leclerc announced himself with a stunning first career pole, 0.294s clear of Vettel on an all-Ferrari front-row. 

A fast-starting Vettel threatened to rain on Leclerc's parade, but the younger driver simply sliced by the four-time world champion on Lap 6 and wasn't seen thereafter.

Leclerc's heart-breaking failure

On lap 46, just 11 from the flag, Leclerc's engine dropped a cyclinder as his pace dropped off drastically as Hamilton began to reel him in, at seconds per lap.

Vettel was not in position to win for Ferrari after spinning out at Turn 4 on lap 38 following a brief battle with Hamilton - the Ferrari's front-wing later destroying itself due to the vibrations picked up from the flat-spots from the spin.

As it was, Hamilton cruised up and apologetically passed Leclerc on 48, with the Ferrari losing P2 to Bottas six tours later as Max Verstappen sniffed an unlikely podium finish.

He was denied after both Renaults of Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg broke down within seconds of each other in separate incidents, ending the race behind the safety car.

This allowed Leclerc to take a first career podium on a weekend he had been faultless, becoming the first Monegasque on the podium since Louis Chiron in the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix - the second-ever world championship GP, with Bahrain 2019 being the 999th. 

As Mercedes dominated the first-half of the season, Leclerc would have to wait until the Belgian GP in September for a maiden F1 win, the day after his childhood friend Anthoine Hubert was killed in the F2 feature race at Spa.