Charles Leclerc

• 1. Introduction

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  Charles Leclerc, the Monégasque Formula One driver, once told his ill father something that was not yet true. He said he had signed a Formula One contract for the coming season. Hervé Leclerc died aged 54, four days before Charles won the feature race at the 2017 Formula 2 round in Baku. The claim became true later that year, when Charles signed with Sauber.

  Leclerc was born on the 16th of October 1997 and now drives for Ferrari. His contract there runs until at least the end of the 2026 season. How does a boy from Monte Carlo end up in a Ferrari race seat? Why has a driver so quick over a single lap found the World Drivers' Championship so hard to catch? And whose names does he carry on the side of his helmet?

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• 2. Born to Monaco

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  Hervé Leclerc raced in Formula Three during the 1980s, so engines were part of the household long before his son was born in Monte Carlo. Charles's mother, Pascale, is a former hairdresser who ran a salon in Fontvieille. A paternal step-grandfather founded the French manufacturer Novares Group. He helped with miscellaneous costs during the karting years, though not with the racing itself. Charles studied at the Lycée Albert Premier in Monaco-Ville. His younger brother Arthur also became a racing driver, winning the Formula Regional Asian Championship in 2022.

  Jules Bianchi was the family's closest link to the sport. He was Charles's godfather and his mechanic in kart racing, and he had been the best friend of Charles's older maternal half-brother, Lorenzo Tolotta-Leclerc. Leclerc first drove karts aged five at Brignoles, a circuit owned by Bianchi's father. Bianchi died in 2015.

  Competitive racing began in 2005, when Leclerc was seven. In the Mini class he won the regional PACA championship with 15 wins from 18 races, then successfully defended the title in 2006. By 2009 he had moved up to the Cadet class and won the French Championship and the Bridgestone Cup. That year the Swiss watchmaker Richard Mille became his partner, and it supported him for the rest of his karting career.

  International racing came in 2010. He became the youngest winner of the CIK-FIA Monaco Kart Cup, held on his home circuit. In 2011 Nicolas Todt scouted him, and Leclerc joined Todt's management firm, All Road Management, on Bianchi's recommendation. Todt negotiated a move to the Intrepid team, and Leclerc won the World Cup at Sarno. He later called it "by far his best karting race ever".

  The rival who defined these years was Max Verstappen. In 2012 Leclerc joined the factory-backed ART Grand Prix team. He and Verstappen tangled at the second round of the WSK Euro Series, and both were disqualified. Leclerc then finished runner-up at the European Championship in a three-way title fight, and lost the under-18 World Championship by a single point. In 2013, aged 15, he stepped up to the KZ gearbox class. In a duel to become the youngest-ever KZ World Champion, he finished second to Verstappen at Varennes-sur-Allier. Leclerc credited their "numerous clashes" with building his experience and character. The magazine Kartcom called his rise meteoric for a driver who had not spent much time training on track.

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• 3. Climbing the Junior Ladder

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  At the Imola opening round of the 2014 Alps Series, Leclerc retired from both of his first Formula Renault 2.0 races. He was 16 and driving for Fortec. By the end of the year he had two wins, both at Monza, and seven podiums. He finished runner-up to Nyck de Vries, who was in his third year in the category. He also beat Matevos Isaakyan to the rookies' title. Fortec also entered him in selected Eurocup rounds as a guest driver. He took three podiums from six starts but was ineligible for points.

  The step to FIA European Formula 3 in 2015 came with Van Amersfoort Racing, in a crowded and strong field. After Felix Rosenqvist was excluded for a technical infringement at Silverstone, Leclerc inherited pole for two races. His first win followed amid a race-long fight with Antonio Giovinazzi. At Pau he reached eight consecutive podiums, and after six rounds he led Giovinazzi by 42.5 points. Then he collided with Lance Stroll at Zandvoort and had to replace his Dallara chassis. He did not stand on a podium again, and finished fourth with four wins from 13 podiums. At the Macau Grand Prix he finished second to Rosenqvist, and he said the result mattered for his "mental strength".

  A GP3 contract with ART followed in 2016, along with a place in the Ferrari Driver Academy. Leclerc won his debut race at Catalunya by over six seconds. His rival for the title was Alexander Albon, and the lead changed hands more than once. At Yas Marina, Leclerc clinched the championship in race one after Albon retired, even though a collision with Santino Ferrucci ended his own race. He dedicated the title to his godfather, Jules Bianchi. He also said it was the first time in junior formulae he had felt pressure, adding "now I can handle the pressure".

  Formula 2 arrived in 2017 with Prema, in the category's inaugural season and alongside fellow academy member Antonio Fuoco. In his first sprint race at Sakhir, Leclerc made a mid-race pit stop, which is unusual in sprints, after building a nine-second lead. He then overtook 13 drivers in nine laps for his first win. He took a record-equalling sixth consecutive pole at Silverstone. At Spa, a 25-second winning margin was wiped out by disqualification for excessive skid block wear. At Jerez he held off Oliver Rowland and became the then-youngest GP2 or Formula 2 champion, aged 19 years and 356 days. He joined Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Nico Hülkenberg as a rookie champion. His seven wins left him 72 points clear of runner-up Artem Markelov, and he was named FIA Rookie of the Year.

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• 4. The Road to Maranello

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  Leclerc made his testing debut at Fiorano in an F14 T, as a development driver for Haas and Ferrari. With Haas he drove first practice sessions at the British, Hungarian, German and Brazilian Grands Prix. His run at Silverstone impressed Ferrari enough to bring him back for an official test. Rumours said he would jump straight to Formula One with Haas after the GP3 title, but team principal Guenther Steiner denied them. A mid-season test at the Hungaroring in the SF70H gave Leclerc 98 laps and the fastest time on the first day. Kimi Räikkönen said it is not easy to do well in an unfamiliar car, and predicted Leclerc would do great things.

  At Sauber he replaced Pascal Wehrlein as full-time driver beside Marcus Ericsson. At his debut he qualified eighteenth and finished thirteenth. He was the first Monégasque in Formula One since Olivier Beretta. A sixth place later made him the first Monégasque to score points since Louis Chiron in 1950. At his first home Grand Prix in Monaco, a brake failure sent him into the back of Brendon Hartley's car and ended his race. At Spa, Leclerc was caught up in a multi-car collision. He credited the halo device with saving him from severe injury, saying he "was very happy to have it over his head". He finished thirteenth overall with 39 points to Ericsson's nine, and won Rookie of the Year again.

  Ferrari signed him for the next season, swapping seats with Räikkönen to partner four-time champion Sebastian Vettel. Team principal Maurizio Arrivabene said the contract would run until 2022. In Bahrain Leclerc took his first pole and became the second-youngest polesitter in Formula One history. He led most of the race until an engine issue with 10 laps left let both Mercedes drivers past. Third place gave him his first podium. In Belgium he took pole, held off Hamilton and, aged 21, became the third-youngest Grand Prix winner and the first Monégasque winner. He dedicated the victory to Anthoine Hubert, who had been killed the day before in Formula 2. Then at Monza he defended the lead against both Mercedes drivers. It was the first Ferrari win there since Fernando Alonso in 2010. Italian media nicknamed him il Predestinato, meaning the Predestined.

  The season also had friction. In Singapore, Vettel was allowed to pit first and undercut him, and Leclerc called the strategy "unfair". Team principal Mattia Binotto said Vettel pitted first to defend his position. Late in the year the two Ferrari drivers collided and both retired, and Binotto said they "should be sorry for the team". Leclerc still finished fourth in the championship with 264 points, 24 clear of Vettel, and won the FIA Pole Trophy with seven poles. Ferrari extended his contract until the end of 2024.

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• 5. Near Misses

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  The 2020 season was delayed and shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Ferrari struggled with the SF1000. Leclerc collided with Vettel on the first lap in Styria, and both retired. He took full responsibility. The FIA investigated whether he had breached COVID-19 safety protocols on a trip home to Monte Carlo, and he and Ferrari received a warning. Before the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix he chose not to take the knee, and faced allegations of racism. He answered that racism is "disgusting", accused media outlets of manipulating his words, and said he wanted to avoid promoting violent protest. In that race he qualified eighth and made a one-stop strategy work for fourth place, saying it "felt like victory". He ended the year eighth with 98 points and two podiums, while Ferrari finished sixth in the constructors' standings.

  His 2021 teammate was Carlos Sainz Jr. Leclerc took a surprise pole in Monaco after hitting the barrier at La Piscine in the final part of qualifying. A drive shaft problem then stopped him from starting the race. At one race he inherited the lead on the first lap after Verstappen and Hamilton collided. He held it until the third-to-last lap, when Hamilton passed him. That second place was his only podium of the year. He finished seventh on 159 points. It was the first time a teammate had outscored him in his formula racing career.

  In 2022, new ground effect regulations briefly put Ferrari in front. Leclerc won the season opener from pole after a close fight with Verstappen. It ended a winless run for him and Ferrari, and made him the first Monégasque to lead the World Drivers' Championship. He later took a dominant victory from pole for his first grand slam in Formula One, extending his lead to 34 points over George Russell. Then the season turned. Power unit failures forced him out of the lead in Spain, where he led by 13 seconds, and again at a later round. He spun out of the lead on lap 18 of another race. In Hungary, a strategic error put him on slow hard-compound tyres. By the summer break, Verstappen led by 80 points, and Leclerc admitted he had "stopped counting". Verstappen clinched the title in Japan. Leclerc overtook Sergio Pérez in the final round with a one-stop strategy and took second in the championship. He scored 308 points, 146 behind Verstappen, and led the field with nine pole positions.

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• 6. Victory at Home

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  Ferrari's SF-23 was so hard to drive in Spain in 2023 that Leclerc, who qualified nineteenth and started from the pit lane, called it "undriveable". He finished eleventh. He scored five poles that year but no wins, and ended fifth with 206 points, level with Fernando Alonso. One high point came at an inaugural Grand Prix, where he fought Verstappen and Pérez for the lead. He took second by passing Pérez on the final lap, and that move later won him the Overtake Award.

  The following year, Leclerc vowed to do "absolutely everything" to contend, and he extended his Ferrari contract beyond the 2026 regulation changes. In Australia he finished second behind Sainz in the first Ferrari 1-2 since the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix. Then came Monaco. He started from pole at his home race and won. No Monégasque had taken the event since Louis Chiron in 1931, and none had won it in the Formula One World Championship. He later gained widespread acclaim for a surprise one-stop win that gave Ferrari their first home victory since 2019. A third win came late in the season. He finished third in the championship with 356 points, 81 behind Verstappen and 18 behind Lando Norris. From the summer break he outscored every other driver.

  In 2025 Leclerc was joined by seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton. He said beforehand that he was ready to win the championship. Instead, in China he was disqualified from fifth because his SF-25 was underweight. He took a surprise pole in Hungary and led most of the race before setup problems dropped him to fourth. In Mexico City he escaped a first-corner scramble involving Norris, Hamilton and Verstappen by taking to the run-off area. He then held second against a late Verstappen charge. Ferrari dropped to fourth in the constructors' standings, and he and Hamilton entered a public feud with chairman John Elkann. He finished fifth on 242 points, 86 ahead of Hamilton, with seven podiums to his teammate's none. He beat Hamilton at 19 of 24 Grands Prix.

  New chassis and power unit rules arrived for 2026, and Leclerc said "it is now or never" for a title with Ferrari. In an early race he passed three drivers to lead and swapped the lead seven times with polesitter George Russell. He dropped to third after Ferrari declined to pit under the virtual safety car. In Miami he finished sixth on the road but received a twenty-second penalty for repeatedly leaving the track without reason. That left him eighth.

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• 7. The Driver's Craft

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  A 5 kph advantage at Monaco's high-speed Tabac corner in 2025 led the writer Mark Hughes to call Leclerc "Senna-like" there. Qualifying is the usual starting point for judging him. He holds the record for most pole positions without a World Drivers' Championship, and the eleventh-most in history. In Formula 2 or GP2 he holds the record for poles in a season, eight. His style suits an oversteering car, which lets him make precise micro-corrections at high cornering speed. Edd Straw of The Race wrote that he can wring the neck of a car whatever its limitations. A 2020 study by Amazon Web Services rated him the seventh-fastest Formula One driver of all time. Karun Chandhok has called him the fastest qualifier ever. Critics also note that his one-lap pace often runs ahead of his race pace.

  In wheel-to-wheel combat, Austria in 2019 became a lesson. Verstappen passed him late, and Leclerc said that was "not the way you overtake". The next race, they fought for third without touching. Leclerc said it was the most fun he had had in Formula One, and Verstappen said he understood Leclerc was still sore from Austria. He earned praise for his use of the drag reduction system against Verstappen in Bahrain in 2022. Hamilton himself praised his outside pass around Copse that year. Damon Hill summed up his racing mentality as "win or bust". The flip side is errors. Critics point to race-ending mistakes at the 2020 Italian, 2020 Sakhir and 2022 French Grands Prix. He was also penalised for causing a collision with Verstappen in Japan in 2019, and for erratic defending against Russell in Hungary in 2025.

  His helmet records his life. The base colour is rosso corsa, with a Monégasque flag stripe along the lid. On the side are the words "Papa" and "Jules", for his father and godfather. At the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix he wore a full tribute design to both men. In 2024 he wore one for Bianchi at the Japanese Grand Prix, ten years after his fatal accident. For his last race as Vettel's teammate in 2020 in Abu Dhabi, he wore a Vettel design. His 2023 Canadian Grand Prix helmet honoured Gilles Villeneuve, and the Villeneuve family said he had not asked permission. Jacques Villeneuve then agreed to its use in a discussion with Leclerc. Leclerc wore a tribute to departing teammate Sainz in Abu Dhabi in 2024.

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• 8. Beyond the Cockpit

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  Leclerc began piano lessons aged six, and committed to mastering the instrument during the COVID-19 lockdowns. In April 2023 he released "AUS23 (1:1)", a piano single named after Ferrari's internal name for the Australian Grand Prix. Singles for Miami and Monaco followed, with violin paired to his piano notes through production software. In February 2024 he released an extended play, Dreamers, with the French pianist Sofiane Pamart. It reached number two on the Billboard Classical Albums chart and number one on the Classical Crossover chart. He told Rolling Stone that when he is not racing, music is what he loves. In February 2025 he released a two-sided single, "MC24 / SIN24", from compositions made during the Monaco and Singapore Grands Prix.

  The screen has also found him. In Claude Lelouch's Le Grand Rendez-vous in 2020, he lapped the Circuit de Monaco in a Ferrari SF90 Stradale with Prince Albert II. In 2022 he voiced an additional role in the Italian-language version of Pixar's Lightyear. In November 2024 he appeared in a Canal+ documentary, Charles Leclerc - Supersonique. He used the call sign Perceval, flew with the French Air and Space Force in a Dassault Rafale, and endured a 9 g manoeuvre.

  Business grew around the racing. His partnership with Richard Mille has lasted since 2009. In 2019 he launched a go-kart brand with Birel ART, and in 2020 he became an endorsement model for Giorgio Armani. In April 2024 he launched an ice cream brand called LEC, after his three-letter code on Formula One television graphics. A Ferrari capsule collection came in 2025, and his own merchandise line, CL16, arrived that November.

  His giving is concrete. In April 2020 he won the Race for the World sim racing championship and raised over 70,000 for the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. The following month he helped the Red Cross of Monaco by delivering meals and moving hospital equipment. After the 2023 Monaco Grand Prix he auctioned his race equipment, raising 368,800 for victims of the Emilia-Romagna floods. His helmet sold for a record €306,000. In 2020 the National Council of Monaco awarded him the Medal of Honour.

  He picked 16 as his racing number because its digits sum to his lucky number, 7, and because it is his birth date. His first choices, 7 and 10, were already held by Räikkönen and Pierre Gasly. In 2022, while leading the championship, he entered the Historic Grand Prix of Monaco. He crashed a Ferrari 312B3 at La Rascasse after a brake failure. In November 2025 he and Alexandra Saint Mleux announced their engagement. They married four months later in a private civil ceremony in Monaco-Ville, and drove away in a 1957 Ferrari 250 TR. A larger ceremony is scheduled for 2027.

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