Charles Leclerc is a Monégasque racing driver for Scuderia Ferrari, where he has raced since 2019 and is widely regarded as one of the fastest qualifiers of his generation. He was born on 16 October 1997 in Monte Carlo, Monaco, into a racing family: his father Hervé competed in Formula Three in the 1980s before his death in 2017. ¹

Leclerc is one of the great prospects of the Ferrari Driver Academy, nicknamed "il Predestinato" ("the predestined one") by the Italian media for the speed he has shown since junior racing. His karting career was shaped by close ties to the Bianchi family: he raced at a circuit owned by the father of Jules Bianchi, who became a mentor and godfather-like figure before Bianchi's death in 2015. ¹

“The most poignant came at Baku, where he won the feature race four days after his father's death.”

Early life and karting

Leclerc began karting aged around five, and his early career was guided by Nicolas Todt, son of former Ferrari and FIA boss Jean Todt, who has been his manager since spotting him in 2011. He won French and Bridgestone Cup cadet titles in 2009, became the youngest winner of the CIK-FIA Monaco Kart Cup in 2010, and took the junior karting World Cup at Sarno in 2011, a race he has called the best of his karting life. He added the WSK Euro Series KF2 title in 2012 before moving into single-seaters. ¹

Junior formulae

After finishing runner-up in the 2014 Formula Renault 2.0 Alps series and fourth in the 2015 FIA European Formula 3 Championship, Leclerc joined the Ferrari Driver Academy and accelerated up the ladder. He won the 2016 GP3 Series title with ART Grand Prix, then the inaugural 2017 FIA Formula 2 Championship as a rookie with Prema, a dominant campaign of seven wins. The most poignant came at Baku, where he won the feature race four days after his father's death. ¹

Formula 1 career

Leclerc made his Formula 1 debut with Sauber in 2018, becoming the first Monégasque driver in the sport since 1994 and impressing enough to earn a swift promotion to Ferrari for 2019, alongside Sebastian Vettel. There he took his maiden win at the 2019 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps, holding off Lewis Hamilton in an emotional race a day after the death of his friend Anthoine Hubert, and followed it with victory at Monza a week later, the team's home race. He has driven for Ferrari ever since, becoming the team's longest-serving current driver and its reference point through several technical regulation cycles. ¹

Signature moments

Leclerc finished championship runner-up in 2022, the year he won in Bahrain, Australia and Austria in an early-season title fight with Max Verstappen before Ferrari's challenge faded. The standout of his career came at the 2024 Monaco Grand Prix, where he led from pole to flag to claim a long-awaited home win, becoming the first Monaco-born driver to win the race in decades and ending a personal curse at the circuit; he dedicated it to his late father. ⁴ He added wins at Monza and the United States Grand Prix in 2024. Through the end of 2025 he had amassed 8 race wins, 52 podiums and 27 pole positions, and holds the record for the most pole positions of any driver yet to win a World Drivers' Championship. In October 2025 he reached his 50th podium for Ferrari at the Mexico City Grand Prix. ²

2025 season

In 2025 Leclerc was partnered by seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton, who joined Ferrari from Mercedes in one of the biggest transfers in the sport's history. Leclerc was clearly the stronger of the two over the year, taking seven podiums and Ferrari's only pole of the season at the Hungarian Grand Prix, where he produced the decisive lap in the closest Q3 in F1 history, 0.543s covering the top ten. ³ But the SF-25 lacked the pace to win, and he finished fifth in the Drivers' Championship with 242 points and no Grand Prix victory, outscoring Hamilton at the majority of rounds but unable to mask the car's flaws. ³

2026 season and current form

For 2026, Formula 1's sweeping new chassis and power unit regulations gave Ferrari a reset with the SF-26, and the car has been a clear step forward. Through the opening rounds Leclerc has stood on the podium in Australia and Japan and runs near the front, but back-to-back retirements at Monaco and Spain have cost him, and Ferrari's power unit deficit to a dominant Mercedes has so far kept Leclerc off the top step. ⁵ In June 2026 Ferrari announced a new multi-year contract extension expected to keep him at Maranello into the 2030s, ending any doubt about his future. "It has always been so much more than just a team to me," he said. ⁶

Driving style and character

Leclerc is known above all for raw single-lap pace, an aggressive and committed qualifying style, and strong racecraft, even if Ferrari's machinery has often denied him the results his speed deserves. He is also a popular and articulate figure off-track: a classically trained pianist whose 2024 EP "Dreamers" reached number two on the Billboard classical chart, deeply identified with both Monaco and the Ferrari project. ¹

Bottom line

Leclerc is the cornerstone of Ferrari's driver line-up: a multiple race winner and former title contender, now contractually bound to the Scuderia for the long term and carrying its hopes into the new regulations. What this means for 2026: with the SF-26 finally competitive, the World Championship that has eluded F1's most prolific poleless driver is at last back within reach. ⁶