Ever since he took his first victory with Ferrari in 2019, Charles Leclerc has established himself as their leading man, the driver who always had the potential to kickstart another golden era for the Maranello-based outfit.
And while the team haven’t quite rediscovered the dominance they once had, his latest contract extension is the result of eight seasons of commitment, passion, and plenty of career highlights. To celebrate, we’ve rounded up five of Leclerc’s greatest moments with the Scuderia…
First pole position (2019)
Leclerc demonstrated eye-catching talent from a young age, enough to join the Ferrari Driver Academy in 2016 and get his first call up to F1 two years later with Sauber. After impressing in his rookie season, he earned a promotion to the team of his dreams and proved almost immediately that it had been the right decision by securing a maiden pole position in just his second race.
It was a sizable compliment that he had swapped seats with former World Champion Kimi Raikkonen, but the then 21-year-old faced the unenviable pressure of holding his own against new team mate Sebastian Vettel. He did a good job in his first race in scarlet, qualifying and finishing fifth in the 2019 Australian Grand Prix, but he knew he could push a little harder.
Fastest in FP1 and FP3 at the Bahrain International Circuit, Leclerc was the man to beat heading into Qualifying, and he certainly didn’t disappoint. He dominated all three segments of the crucial session and went nearly three-tenths faster than Vettel as Ferrari locked out the front row, making the Monegasque the second-youngest polesitter in history (Kimi Antonelli has since bumped him down to third on the list).
To top things off, his effort of 1m 28.866s was a new track record and made him the youngest driver to take pole position for the Scuderia. An engine issue unfortunately hindered his chances of converting it into his first race win, but he wouldn’t have too long to wait…
First victory (2019)
After settling for third place in Bahrain, Leclerc got into a pattern of following team orders to allow the more experienced Vettel past, but continued to rack up points and podiums throughout the 2019 season.
Bad luck and mistakes in Austria, Monaco and Germany left him even hungrier to fight at the top, which is exactly what he did at the Belgian Grand Prix. Once he had claimed his third pole position of the year, Leclerc confidently led the majority of the race around the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps before enduring a late challenge from Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton – now his team mate at Ferrari.
Having already proven himself against Vettel, the pressure was nothing that he couldn’t handle, and he pulled off a masterful defence to cross the line just 0.981s ahead of the reigning World Champion.
It felt inevitable that Leclerc would be a winner with Ferrari, and to finally pull it off in Round 13 of the season was a weight off his shoulders. However, it was a bittersweet victory that will be remembered for Leclerc’s dedication to his close friend Anthoine Hubert, who tragically passed away that same weekend in a Formula 2 accident that reshaped the safety of single-seater racing.
First win at Monza (2019)
Leclerc had limited time to take in all the emotions of his maiden win as the paddock headed to the Italian Grand Prix just a few days later, with Ferrari desperate to bring an end to their unwanted nine-year drought without a victory at Monza.
Perhaps the most sacred track for the team, Monza draws in crowds of Tifosi with unparalleled enthusiasm that make the race especially important for Ferrari drivers. Acutely aware of this, Leclerc ensured that he provided the joy that both he and the fans craved by beating Hamilton to pole position to set the stage for a fairytale win.
At lights out, he smartly blocked the Briton from snatching first place and went on to hold a shaky lead under immense pressure. From forcing Hamilton off the track to scampering across the run-off area of his own volition, Leclerc ensured that Ferrari’s return to glory in Monza was far from comfortable.
Nevertheless, Hamilton and his team mate Valtteri Bottas had their own problems with tyre management, allowing the Monegasque driver to cling on and cross the line as the winner of the Italian Grand Prix. The Finn was less than a second behind, but that made absolutely no difference as Leclerc once again made history and cemented himself as a Ferrari icon, earning the nickname ‘Il Predestinato’.
He would repeat the achievement five years later by maximising a bold one-stop strategy to hold off McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. The magical win led him to claim: “I thought that the first time would just feel like this, and then the second time – if there was a second time – wouldn’t feel as special, but my god, the emotions in the last few laps, exactly the same like in 2019.”
Championship contender (2022)
The seasons that followed 2019 were full of frustration and void of race wins, making the new regulations in 2022 a welcome change. Ferrari looked strong from the outset and relished the latest focus on ground effect as Leclerc turned pole position into his third career victory by holding off a determined Max Verstappen at the season opener in Bahrain.
Their battle under the lights was nothing short of cinematic and set the stage for an epic season, with Leclerc narrowly missing out on a second consecutive win in Saudi Arabia before dominating the Australian Grand Prix. There, he achieved his first career grand slam and built up a considerable lead of 34 points in the standings.
It was early days, but the Leclerc/Verstappen rivalry looked like it could be one for the ages. Two young drivers who had raced each other for years as juniors competing for the highest honour in motorsport – even neutral fans couldn’t ask for much more as their remarkably close fights characterised the opening races.
Unfortunately, Leclerc’s lead gradually fell away thanks to a brutal mix of driver errors, mechanical failures and strategic missteps. He still achieved an impressive nine pole positions, three victories and a further eight podiums in 2022, marking him as a serious title contender for the future.
First Monaco victory (2024)
No one has experienced the ‘home race curse’ quite like Leclerc. As one of the few Monegasque drivers to participate in F1 – the first, Louis Chiron, previously won the 1931 Monaco Grand Prix – a victory on the streets he grew up on would prove to be more elusive than he could have predicted.
His first home race in 2018 was ruined by a brake disc failure and subsequent crash. Hoping for more in his maiden campaign with Ferrari, his ambitions were crushed when they failed to send him out for a second run and he was eliminated in Q1 before he spun and got a tyre puncture during the race – his second DNF.
Despite successive pole positions in 2021 and 2022 offering a glimpse of hope, another crash and strategic errors meant that Leclerc got as far as 2024 without standing on the iconic podium at his home event.
A third pole created another strong chance for the local favourite and this time, he wasn’t going to let anything jeopardise it. He kept a cool head after a trio of drivers further down the field suffered a massive collision on the opening lap, and perfected the restart to cleanly lead from Piastri.
From there, Leclerc and Ferrari made none of the mistakes of years gone by and slowly built up a lead of over seven seconds to bring home an incredibly emotional victory for the Monegasque, which involved driving on the same tyres for 77 laps. He later admitted that the heartbreak of previous seasons ended up making this win – at the race “that made me dream of becoming a Formula 1 driver one day” – even sweeter and ticked off a lifelong ambition of his.
