Leclerc's win removes Monaco millstone. Ferrari boss hopeful the gap to Red Bull is closing

MONACO (AP) — Ferrari doubled its win tally from all last season and Charles Leclerc ended his barren two-year run in Formula 1 with victory from pole position at Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix.

Eight races into this season, Ferrari and McLaren are looking like they might be able to challenge Red Bull. For F1 fans as a whole it offers hope of more competitive racing.

“It’s exciting and I hope it will be like this for the rest of the season,” Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur said after Sunday’s race. “It will be up and down until the end.”

It wasn’t last season, when Max Verstappen beat his own F1 record with an astounding 19 wins for Red Bull. His teammate Sergio Perez got two victories, and the only non-Red Bull driver to win was Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr.

Leclerc and Sainz have one win each this year and so has McLaren’s Lando Norris. That makes it 5-3 to Red Bull so far — all Verstappen wins — while Leclerc’s Monaco pole on Saturday ended Verstappen’s bid for a record-extending ninth straight pole.

Very good!（5）