He is someone who was nurtured by the late Jules Bianchi. No stranger to personal and professional tragedy, the latter being his mentor’s untimely demise, Charles Leclerc has bettered grave setbacks, such as losing out on his father when he was a child.
Yet, here he is. And where it stands currently, then the narrative regarding Charles Leclerc is pretty clear in F1.
Charles Leclerc is the future of Ferrari while Vettel may certainly be its present.
Charles Leclerc symbolizes and stands for the future of the sport, the prospect of a world championship, and a new dawn for Ferrari.
Ever since he completed a formidable season with Sauber, Ferrari’s customer car in F1, it was clear who the beacon of hope at Maranello was going to be, come 2019.
Standing on the cusp of a possible sixth podium, Charles Leclerc has been driving with unbridled passion and boundless enthusiasm where the past Grands Prix serve an example.
Following back to back P3 finishes at Canada and France, Leclerc nearly aced the Austrian Grand Prix, where he gathered a fantastic second, just behind Verstappen. His on-track battle with Max Verstappen was timely, innovative, fearless and no-holds-barred.
The kind of stuff that Formula 1 so desperately needed in a bid to revive itself from an out and out Mercedes onslaught. This was yet another wheel-to-wheel confrontation (between two rising and possibly great drivers) presented to the stewards, who upheld Leclerc’s nemesis Verstappen’s win as the Ferrari stood aloft on the second at Spielberg.
Heading into Silverstone, Leclerc’s promising third, and thus, his fifth overall F1 podium was a respite from seeing Vettel’s calamitous drive that very English ‘Lewis Hamilton-dominated’ weekend.
But ahead of the 2019 German Grand Prix, his first with the Prancing Horse, Charles Leclerc has opened up about his early impressions about the current SF90.
Intimidated by Ferrari?
And guess what? He’s even shared that he was a bit intimidated with the car or was it perhaps the prospect of driving for arguably, the sport’s most sensational and famed team ever?
In his own words, Leclerc, 21, admitted:
“I think before France it was more myself that was adapting to the car, after that I think we changed the approach a little bit and I adapted the car a bit more to my driving (style),” Leclerc explained.
“So then I could drive a little bit more naturally, which helped me.”
But he didn’t throw in the towel just yet.
Charles Leclerc went on to add that since he had only just arrived in such a big team- lest it is forgotten that Ferrari is a behemoth of a unit in F1- he was perhaps ‘intimidated’ to make too many changes.
The young Monegasque driver went on to add, “And to straight away arrive and say ‘OK, I want this, this and this’ was not the way I wanted to start this relationship.”
Last year, in a Sauber, Leclerc, then only 20, went on to record only a modest fifteenth, despite starting from ninth on the grid. What can he bring about at Hockenheimring this Sunday?