Charles Leclerc Furious After Carlos Sainz Ignores Ferrari Orders
Nov.25 - The Charles Leclerc-Carlos Sainz driver combination at Ferrari appears to be ending in acrimony. Leclerc crossed the chequered flag fourth in Las Vegas P4 - one place..
Name | Charles Leclerc |
Country | Monaco |
Height | 1.80 meter / 5 feet 11 inch |
Place of Birth | Monte Carlo |
Date of Birth | Oct 16th 1997 - 27 years old |
Season Entries | 7 |
Car Number | 16 |
First Race | 2018 Australian F1 GP |
Last Race | 2024 Las Vegas F1 GP |
First Pole | 2019 Bahrain F1 GP |
Last Pole | 2024 Azerbaijan F1 GP |
First Win | 2019 Belgian F1 GP |
Last Win | 2024 USA F1 GP |
First Win from Pole | 2019 Belgian F1 GP |
Last Win from Pole | 2024 Monaco F1 GP |
First Hat-trick | 2022 Bahrain F1 GP |
Last Hat-trick | 2022 Australian F1 GP |
F1 Teams History | Sauber (2018) Ferrari (2019-2024) |
Charles Leclerc F1 Stats | |
Grand Prix Entries | 147 |
Grand Prix Starts | 145 |
Total Points | 1393.00 |
Avg. Points per GP | 9.48 |
Grand Prix Wins | 8 (5,4%) |
Wins from pole | 5 (3,4%) |
Pole Positions | 26 (17,7%) |
Front Row Starts | 38 (25,9%) |
Avg. GP Grid | 6.4 |
GP Podiums | 41 (27,9%) |
GP Fastest Laps | 10 (6,8%) |
GP Points Finish | 113 (76,9%) |
Avg. GP Position | 5.6 |
Hat-tricks | 2 (1,4%) |
GP Retirements | 24 (16,3%) |
GP DNF's | 19 (12,9%) |
Total GP Laps | 7.877 |
This Monegasque racing driver is regarded as one of the new generation and highly talented drivers like Max Verstappen and Esteban Ocon.
With this new generation of drivers, it's not the question if but when they will become Formula 1 champions. Charles Leclerc was also since 2016 part of the Ferrari Driver Academy.
On the second of December 2017, Leclerc was announced as driver to drive for the Swiss Sauber team in 2018. The Sauber F1 team would also change their name into Alfa Romeo Sauber. His teammate would be Marcus Ericsson at the wheel of a Ferrari-powered car.
Leclerc started his racing career at the age of eight with karting and has been very successful. In 2005 he right away was the winner of the French PACA championship. The following season (2006) and two season later in 2008 he also won this karting championship.
In 2009 he became champion of the Cadet karting championship before he stepped up to the KF3 championship 2010. In 2010 Leclerc also was the winner of the Junior Monaco Kart Cup. In 2011 he drove another KF3 season and won a lot of prices.
Charles Leclerc won the CIK-FIA World Cup, the CIK-FIA Karting Academy Trophy and also the ERDF Junior Kart Masters. He then also became a part member of Nicolas Todt's All Road Management.
In 2012 Leclerc was able to step up his game and started in the KF2 karting championship with ART Grand Prix. That year he won the WSK Euro Series and finished second in the CIK-FIA European KF2 Championship. He also ended up on second place for the Under 18 World Karting Championship. In 2013 he finished 6th in the CIK-FIA European KZ Championship and 2nd in the CIK-FIA World KZ Championship.
In 2014 Leclerc took the step to formula racing. He took part in the Formula Renault 2.0 Alps for the Fortec Motorsports team. In this first season of open-wheel racing he scored seven podiums and was able to score a double winner on Monza. He finished the champion as second behind Nyck de Vries. He also won the Junior championship in the last race in Jerez.
In this season Leclerc also drove race weekends as guest driver at the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 championship with the Fortec team. In those six races he took part in, he finished on the podium three times.
In 2015 Leclerc again stepped up his career and made his debut in F3. He drove at the Dutch Van Amersfoort Racing and took part in the European Formula 3 championship. He won four races and took the lead in the first part of the championship. In the second part of this F3 championship, he lost this lead and eventually finished fourth behind Felix Rosenqvist, Antonio Giovinazzi and Jake Dennis. In the last Grand Prix of Macau, he finished second.
In 2016, Leclerc switched to the GP3 series to drive for the ART Grand Prix team. He right away won the first race in Spain on the Catalunya Circuit and won this championship by also winning races in Austria at the Red Bull Ring and in Belgium at Spa-Francorchamps.
After one year of GP racing, Leclerc stepped up to Formula 2 in 2017. He drove for the Prema Racing team together with Antonio Fuoco, who also is a member of the Ferrari Academy. In this championship, he also won his first race during the first race weekend of the season in Bahrain. He also won this championship in his first attempt in the penultimate weekend at Jerez.
During the 2016 season, Leclerc already was working as a development driver at the Ferrari F1 team and test driver for the Haas F1 team. He made his debut in F1 at the first practice during the British Grand Prix weekend.
In 2017, he drove four of the last six first practice sessions of the season for the Sauber team and would race for Alfa Romeo Sauber during the 2018 F1 season. In 2017, his father died, which gave him a hard time, and he learned there is more than racing alone. Did you know his godfather was Jules Bianchi?
His first F1 race on the 25th of March 2018 in Australia was a good one. In qualifying, Leclerc was only 0,08 sec slower than his much more experienced teammate Marcus Ericsson. Leclerc started the race in P18 and had a solid race with no mistakes. He passed two cars and finished on a solid P13 and didn't make any mistakes.
Later on, in the 2018 season, he was a lot more comfortable in the Sauber C37. In Azerbaijan he finished on an amazing sixth place and in France he qualified eighth, only two places behind the Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen. He finished the French GP on P10 and already equalled the total amount of points his teammate Ericsson scored in his whole F1 career after just eight races. Ericsson already had driven 84 races, more than 10 times the amount Leclerc needed to score 11 points.
After months of speculation and F1 rumours, at last, the news came out on September 11th when Sauber announced the return of Raikkonen to the team for 2019 for two seasons, while Ferrari confirmed Leclerc for 2019 as second driver next to Sebastian Vettel. He would become the second-youngest driver in the history of Ferrari. Ricardo Rodriguez is with 19 years the youngest driver ever to drive for Ferrari in the 1961 F1 season and is also one of the two brothers the famous race track is named after in Mexico City: Autodromo Hermanos Rodriquez.
Charles won his first pole position at his second Grand Prix as a Ferrari driver in Bahrain. He even overtook his highly-rated teammate Vettel in the fifth lap of the race. A power unit issue in the back of the SF90 costed him dearly and he had to settle for third place as his first win eluded him. He scored his first podium in Formula 1, also, he won a point for driving the fastest lap of the race.
After his impressive performance at Bahrain, he had tough races at China, Azerbaijan and Spain due to far-from-ideal strategies and his crash during Q2 at Baku, where he was among the candidates to score the Pole Position and fight for the top step of the podium.
His home Grand Prix at Monaco was his worst weekend of the season so far. He was eliminated in Q1 after the team informed him that his lap time was good enough for advancing to Q2, then he crashed with Nico Hulkenberg during the race and had to retire. His woes at Monaco were followed by four straight podiums at Canada, France, Austria, and Great Britain, He started from Pole at the Red Bull Ring and had a clear shot at his maiden win, but Verstappen denied him after a stunning overtake in the latter stages of the GP.
In Germany, he crashed after he leapfrogged Verstappen and Bottas and was running second in the race behind Lewis Hamilton. At Hungary, a crash in Q1 wasn't an ideal situation for his confidence although he was able to continue. He ended the race fourth after spending 68 laps in third position until his tyres were too worn out to keep his teammate behind.
The first half of his debut year for Ferrari was positive for Leclerc, although it could have been better. The Monegasque driver showed confidence and remained calm enough when things went badly, especially when it happened because of his own mistakes. He scored 132 points, five podiums and two Pole Positions in his first 12 races dressed in Ferrari red.
After a difficult weekend at Budapest to close out the first half of the season, Ferrari would have their best chances to score victories in the first two races of the second half thanks to the straight-line velocity of the SF90. Leclerc started the second half strongly with a seven-tenths Pole Position over his teammate Vettel and went on to take the first victory of his career at the 2019 Belgian Grand Prix. He became Ferrari's youngest driver to win a Grand Prix.
The race was emotional for Leclerc since his childhood friend Anthoine Hubert had died the day before in a Formula 2 crash at Spa, at the same circuit where Leclerc had just taken the third Pole of his career.
The following weekend, in the 2019 Italian Grand Prix, Leclerc scored Pole Position again and beat the Mercedes on Sunday to take a popular win at Italy with a Ferrari. Leclerc's win at Monza was Ferrari's first at their home Grand Prix since 2010 (Fernando Alonso won from Pole that year).
Two weeks later, in the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix, he qualified on Pole Position for the third straight race, ahead of Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton. In the race, Leclerc led the first stint with a close gap over Hamilton, Vettel, Verstappen, and Bottas, who were all saving their tires.
After Vettel entered the pits a couple of laps before Leclerc did, the German was in front and found himself leading the race after clearing the traffic with aggressive overtaking. Leclerc followed Vettel home after an exchange with his engineer where he called the results "unfair". The Monegasque finished second behind his teammate, giving Ferrari the 1-2.
The tension at Ferrari continued at the 2019 Russian Grand Prix. Leclerc qualified on Pole for the four straight race, which was the first time any Ferrari driver achieved four straight Poles since Michael Schumacher's era.
In the race, Vettel overtook Leclerc from P3 and led the race after the first couple of corners. Another exchange between the pit-wall and the drivers started as Vettel was instructed to let Leclerc by. Ferrari had an alleged agreement in which Leclerc would give a tow to Vettel so he could overtake the Mercedes of Hamilton, who was in P2 and Vettel would give the position back to the Monegasque.
Vettel asked the team to tell Leclerc to close the gap to him, but the Monegasque could not do it. As Hamilton was close to Leclerc, Vettel did not let him pass, since the maneuver would have been difficult. Leclerc was told the swap would happen later in the race after he stated: "I respected everything, you put me behind. Manage the situation".
Leclerc pitted before Vettel and he got ahead after the German's pitstop. However, Vettel's MGU-K failed and it prompted a Virtual Safety Car which was costly for Leclerc. A Safety Car period gave Leclerc the option to change from the medium tyres to the soft tyres to fight with Hamilton, who was leading the race with a new set of softs. However, after his pitstop, Leclerc lost the position with the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas. The Monegasque could not overtake the Finn and he finished third in a race Ferrari was the favourite to win.
In the last five races of the year, Leclerc only managed a podium in the final GP at Abu Dhabi, although he started from Pole at Mexico. In the penultimate race, the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix, Leclerc made contact with his teammate when battling for track position and both retired. Leclerc himself recognized the maneuver was avoidable from both sides, although Vettel drove slightly into him without any necessity.
At the end of his first year with Ferrari, the Monegasque won two races, achieved 10 podiums and led the field with seven Pole Positions. With 264 points, he finished fourth in the WDC and edged his teammate by 24 points.
The 2020 Ferrari SF1000 was not a world-beater since the start of the 2020 season. Still, Leclerc managed to achieve a podium in the first race of the year, at Austria.
Then, he finished third in the 2020 British Grand Prix and has managed to achieve four other Top-5 finishes throughout the year. Despite Ferrari's struggles, Leclerc put up some impressive performances during several qualifying sessions and managed to score points with a certain consistency. He finished 2020 with 98 points and with eighth place in the WDC.
The 2021 season saw a new teammate for Charles Leclerc at the Scuderia Ferrari, with Carlos Sainz coming in from McLaren. The pair of Ferrari drivers looked closely matched throughout the season, although Leclerc outqualified Sainz 14-8, and also finished ahead in 14 of the 22 Grands Prix.
Moreover, the end of the season saw Carlos Sainz finishing ahead of his Ferrari teammate, with 164.5 points over Leclerc's 159.
The Monegasque finished seventh in the World Drivers' Championship, two spots behind his teammate. Leclerc achieved a podium and two Pole Positions in 2021, while also adding 10 finishes in the Top 5 throughout the year.
Leclerc started the 2022 Formula 1 season driving the Ferrari F1-75 to victory at the 2022 Bahrain GP on March 20th, 2022.
The Ferrari looked highly competitive early in 2022, and Leclerc went on to win the fourth race of his Formula 1 career on April 10th, 2022, when he dominated the 2022 Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. After the first four races of 2022, he led the WDC with 86 points scored.
Leclerc lost consecutive wins in the 2022 Spanish and Monaco GPs, the first one due to mechanical issues and the second one due to strategic mistakes. On 28th May 2022, he qualified on Pole Position for his home race at Monaco for the second year in a row, but bad calls as the track was drying up meant that he could only finish fourth.
Then, he qualified on Pole Position for the 2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix and was leading the race before another engine issue meant he could not finish the race.
Leclerc won the 11th race of the 2022 season at Austria on 10 July 2022, to take the fifth win of his Formula 1 career. It was also the first time he won a Grand Prix without starting from Pole Position. The race was tremendous, with Leclerc overtaking Red Bull's Max Verstappen three times for the lead.
In the final laps, the throttle pedal of his F1-75 wasn't working smoothly, and Leclerc found himself under pressure from the Dutchman. However, Leclerc won the event.
On 23 July 2022, Leclerc achieved the 16th Pole Position of his Formula 1 career, becoming the driver with the third-most Pole Positions for the Scuderia Ferrari, behind Michael Schumacher (58) and Niki Lauda (23).
The following day, Leclerc crashed out in the race after leading in the early stages.
The 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix was another blow on Leclerc's hopes for a title in 2022, as a strategic mistake from Ferrari (putting the hard tyres on a cold track and compromising Leclerc's pace) as the Monegasque was comfortably leading.
Eventually, Leclerc finished only sixth in Hungary and went into the summer break with an 80-point deficit behind Max Verstappen, the championship leader.
Leclerc recorded his eighth Pole Position of 2022 (securing his lead on that stat in 2022) at Ferrari's home event in Monza. However, he did not have the pace to deliver a home win for the Tifosi and finished second behind Max Verstappen's all-conquering Red Bull car.
The podium at Monza was Leclerc's seventh in 2022 and the 20th podium of his F1 career, but his championship hopes were fading away.
In the 2022 Singapore Grand Prix, Leclerc recorded the 18th Pole Position of his Formula 1 career, tying Mario Andretti, René Arnoux, and Kimi Raikkonen for 13th place in the history of the series. In the race, he finished second behind Red Bull's Sergio Pérez.
Leclerc then finished the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix in third place due to a penalty right after the race. Leclerc had committed a mistake in the final chicane on the last lap and cut the track. He was given a five-second penalty that demoted him from second to third and secured Max Verstappen's 2022 title.
It was Leclerc's ninth podium of 2022.
Leclerc reached his 10th podium in 2022 and the 23rd of his career at the 2022 US Grand Prix.
With his 23rd podium with Ferrari, Leclerc tied Clay Regazzoni's and Eddie Irvine's tally of podiums with Ferrari, which is the eighth-highest in the Scuderia's history.
Leclerc ended the 2022 season with three wins, 11 podiums and nine Pole Positions. He was second in the WDC with 308 points. All those statistics were career bests for Leclerc, but he fell well short of a maiden F1 title in 2022.
Leclerc's new quest for a World Driver's title with the Scuderia Ferrari started with bad results in 2023, primarily due to mechanical issues and some mistakes.
However, the fourth race of the season saw a leap in performance from the Maranello-based team, and Leclerc put the car in Pole Position for the 2023 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, his third straight Pole at the venue and the 19th of his F1 career.
Leclerc qualified on Pole for the main event and also for Saturday's Sprint event, which had its own Qualifying shootout.
In both the Sprint and the Grand Prix, Leclerc finished on the podium (second at the Sprint and third in the GP). His third place in the Grand Prix was his 25th F1 podium.
Leclerc finished second in the 2023 Austrian Grand Prix to achieve his second podium of 2023, the 26th of his career and the 800th in the history of the Scuderia Ferrari.
After two tough outings in Silverstone and Hungary, Leclerc started the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix on Pole (due to a grid penalty to Max Verstappen) and finished third in the race for his third podium of 2023 and the 27th of his career.
A DNF in the Netherlands preceded a great run of results for Leclerc in the final nine races of the season, interrupted only by a disqualification (due to excessive wear in the plank of his car) at Austin, and a DNS in Brazil.
Apart from those two bad results, Leclerc finished every time inside the Top 4 and scored three podiums in the last four races of the season, including two second-place spots in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi. The Monegasque started on Pole Position in Las Vegas and was certainly the best driver at the track, but strategic mistakes kept him away from the top step of the podium.
He finished the season in fifth place in the World Drivers' Championship, ahead of his teammate Carlos Sainz. Leclerc scored 206 points and finished on the podium six times in 2023. Moreover, he was great on Saturdays, as usual, and grabbed five Pole Positions to reach 23 in his career (14th-most in F1 history and tied for second-most in Ferrari's history).
With Ferrari emerging as a distant second-best in the 2024 F1 season, Leclerc started the campaign with solid drives.
He qualified in the front row in the first two races, although far from Pole Position. Leclerc overcame brake issues in the early stages of the first race to finish fourth in Bahrain.
Then, Leclerc did a good job of achieving his 31st podium with a third-place finish in the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Official Charles Leclerc website: https://www.charlesleclerc.com/
2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
13th | 4th | 8th | 7th | 2nd | 5th | 3rd |
Year | Team | Engine | GP | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Pod | Pole | Laps | FL | Avg Pts | Points |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2024 | Ferrari | Ferrari | 22 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 11 | 3 | 1298 | 3 | 14.50 | 319 |
2023 | Ferrari | Ferrari | 21 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 1147 | 0 | 9.62 | 202 |
2022 | Ferrari | Ferrari | 22 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 11 | 9 | 1190 | 3 | 14.00 | 308 |
2021 | Ferrari | Ferrari | 21 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1145 | 0 | 7.57 | 159 |
2020 | Ferrari | Ferrari | 17 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 822 | 0 | 5.76 | 98 |
2019 | Ferrari | Ferrari | 21 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 10 | 7 | 1216 | 4 | 12.57 | 264 |
2018 | Sauber | Ferrari | 21 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1059 | 0 | 1.86 | 39 |
1st | 8 Times |
2nd | 14 Times |
3rd | 19 Times |
4th | 24 Times |
5th | 13 Times |
6th | 10 Times |
7th | 10 Times |
8th | 4 Times |
9th | 3 Times |
10th | 5 Times |
11th | 4 Times |
12th | 1 Time |
13th | 2 Times |
14th | 2 Times |
15th | 2 Times |
16th | 1 Time |
18th | 2 Times |
19th | 1 Time |
DNF | 19 Times |
DSQ | 1 Time |
DNS | 2 Times |
Year | Race | No | Team | Engine | Grid | Pos | Retired | Pts | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
8 | 2024 | 2024 USA F1 GP | 16 | Ferrari | Ferrari | 4 | 1 | 30 | |
7 | 2024 | 2024 Italian F1 GP | 16 | Ferrari | Ferrari | 4 | 1 | 25 | |
6 | 2024 | 2024 Monaco F1 GP | 16 | Ferrari | Ferrari | 1 | 1 | 25 | |
5 | 2022 | 2022 Austrian F1 GP | 16 | Ferrari | Ferrari | 2 | 1 | 32 | |
4 | 2022 | 2022 Australian F1 GP | 16 | Ferrari | Ferrari | 1 | 1 | 26 | |
3 | 2022 | 2022 Bahrain F1 GP | 16 | Ferrari | Ferrari | 1 | 1 | 26 | |
2 | 2019 | 2019 Italian F1 GP | 16 | Ferrari | Ferrari | 1 | 1 | 25 | |
1 | 2019 | 2019 Belgian F1 GP | 16 | Ferrari | Ferrari | 1 | 1 | 25 |
Year | Team | Team Mate | Best Pos | Points | Wins | Poles | Pos | Quali | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2018 | Sauber | Marcus Ericsson | 6 | 9 | 39 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 9 | 17 | 4 |
2019 | Ferrari | Sebastian Vettel | 1 | 1 | 264 | 240 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 2 | 9 | 12 | 12 | 9 |
2020 | Ferrari | Sebastian Vettel | 2 | 3 | 98 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 5 | 13 | 4 |
2021 | Ferrari | Carlos Sainz | 2 | 2 | 159 | 164.5 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 14 | 8 | 14 | 8 |
2022 | Ferrari | Carlos Sainz | 1 | 1 | 308 | 246 | 3 | 1 | 9 | 3 | 13 | 9 | 16 | 6 |
2023 | Ferrari | Carlos Sainz | 2 | 1 | 206 | 200 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 12 | 10 | 14 | 8 |
2024 | Ferrari | Carlos Sainz | 1 | 1 | 303 | 259 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 13 | 8 | 12 | 8 |
Oliver Bearman | 3 | 7 | 16 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Nov.25 - The Charles Leclerc-Carlos Sainz driver combination at Ferrari appears to be ending in acrimony. Leclerc crossed the chequered flag fourth in Las Vegas P4 - one place..
Nov.21 - The FIA is yet to respond to the letter put out by the Formula 1 drivers' union. Earlier in November, angry about Mohammed Ben Sulayem's clampdown on bad language, the..
Nov.19 - Two brothers could be at the wheel of the two Ferraris for Friday free practice at the season-ending Abu Dhabi GP. The Maranello based team's original plan would have..
Nov.13 - Charles Leclerc has lashed back at those claiming his relationship with departing Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz has fallen apart. A short video has been doing the rounds..
Nov.8 - Formula 1 drivers have hit out at the sport's governing body and FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, insisting they want to be treated like "adults". Ben Sulayem recently..
Nov.2 - The FIA has given Charles Leclerc a more lenient penalty than Max Verstappen for a nearly identical faux-pas. For his 'F-word' uttered in the Thursday FIA press conference..
Oct.29 - Charles Leclerc may be in trouble for swearing in the post-race FIA press conference after the Mexican GP. Recently, at the Singapore GP, Max Verstappen described his Red..
Ferrari's Texas Triumph: Can They Challenge for the Constructors' Title? After Ferrari's impressive 1-2 finish at the United States Grand Prix, the excitement in the paddock is..
Oct.19 - Charles Leclerc admits that if he wins the 2024 world championship, he won't "deserve it". Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, separated by 52 points with six races to go,..
Oct.14 - Mattia Binotto says he would not have signed Lewis Hamilton if he was still team boss at Ferrari. "No," he bluntly told Corriere della Sera. "But he did well to accept..
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