No Matter Who You Are, Even If You Are A 4-time F1 World Champion, You Are Human And You Need To Take

No matter who you are, even if you are a 4-time F1 world champion, you are human and you need to take care of the planet you live in💚

The Chrimer: 2014, Formula Renault.

Charles' karting days are over: in 2014, he graduates to single-seaters.

Single-seaters are known to be difficult to master; their aerodynamics, light weights and powerful engines mean they're both incredibly fast and difficult to control. Charles makes the jump to the category with British racing team Fortec Motorsports. His signing gets announced in November 2013 for the upcoming season.

By this point, Charles has been working with manager Nicolas Todt (the son of a hugely influential Ferrari/FIA boss) for a couple years. Racing isn't cheap: Todt is instrumental in financing his move to single-seaters.

This was critical to the viability of Charles' career. In 2021, Toto Wolff estimated that a "good go-karting season costs €250,000, an F4 season €500,000, and an F3 season €1 million" while speaking about the difficulties young drivers aiming for F1 have.

The Leclercs' aren't able to drop that kind of money on racing: Pascale is a hairdresser, and Hervé works for the family business: a small plastics company.

In 2021, Lorenzo says (awkwardly translated into English):

“Every year, in karting, we said to ourselves that it was the last season. Charles handled the pressure, knowing that if he didn’t have results, it was over, and that, even if he had results, we weren’t. not sure to continue. Hervé, his father, tried to make it run by all possible means. I was at the national level in karting. Being lucid, I saw that it would be impossible for me to go to F1. So I stopped, because the family bet was to find solutions at all costs for Charles to succeed. Because he, at 11, was already standing out from the crowd, with drivers like Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly."

And from Arthur in the same interview:

"At 14, I played my first full championship. But immediately we had to stop for three years, because for my father it was too expensive to support Charles and me at the same time."

In a 2021 stream, Arthur expands on the difficulties:

"With my father I never traveled once. He didn't have the money for Charles' karting or for me. He did not have the money to go & see Charles in the race, actually. We were staying at home and following Charles in the computer."

(As a note, Charles would work with his uncle once he reached F1 to sponsor Arthur's career.)

In classic Charles fashion, he tried to put a positive spin on it in a 2020 interview:

"I have learned that from my father, who quite often left me alone on the race weekend so that I grew up on my own. I am trying to do the same with Arthur and so far he is doing a great job!"

The Leclerc family has a complicated history with racing: Hervé actually comes from a very successful Monaco family. His stepfather, Charles Manni, was the founder of a local company that manufactures car parts. Here is Hervé showing his F3 car to his stepfather:

And Hervé with his half-brother (/Charles' uncle) Thierry Manni--

However... while Hervé and Thierry fell in love with racing, their father did not.

Thierry said:

"I often read that Charles comes from a modest family, but that's not true. We were the biggest employer in Monaco, but my father held on to a certain number of values. In the family, we do not write blank checks. He put limits on his participation, Hervé gave what he could and, at one point, we even found ourselves faced with an impasse. This is where Nicolas Todt intervened in 2011 to help us, under the leadership of Jules Bianchi. "

Once Charles' career appears to be in jeopardy, Jules-- Todt's first signed driver-- insists that they meet.

Todt is impressed by the karter, and steps in. Usually, a manager attempts to finance a driver through securing sponsorships; in Charles' case, Todt puts the money up himself.

In 2019, Todt says:

"I signed Charles at 14. He should have stopped karting because he ran out of money. I decided to help him. I introduced him to Ferrari a few years ago and today he drives there. And no one can say that he got there just like that: he's there because we did the job. For me, someone like Charles is my greatest pride, the fact that he went there and delivered."

Todt would later expand on this:

"I love finding future stars and helping them make their dreams come true. I am the only manager who does it that way, that is my specialty. It's easy to say: you have to do this, you have to do that. As long as it's not your own money, you can give advice. You can say 'buy this house'. But do you say: 'Buy this house, we make 50/50?' Then it's a completely different thing. If I believe in someone, then I invest. Of course, I also try to find sponsors who help me. But if I don't find sponsors, I'm the one who has to invest. I did that with Jules [Bianchi], I did it with Charles, and I do it with drivers who I think are special."

With Todt's support, Charles is able to compete in the Formula Renault 2.0 Alps Championship.

It is worth noting, though, that single-seaters weren't the only thing Charles learned to drive in 2014:

Charles starts his season off by picking his number... 17, which was also the number Jules was racing under in F1 at the time:

Charles starts the season strong. Charles manages to set a category track record at preseason testing: Kartcom's article summarizing the day was simply titled "Charles Leclerc leaves everyone in his trail in Barcelona".

Charles is quoted, saying:

"I don’t think the tests could have gone any better. It’s incredible being a rookie and setting the fastest overall time! We still have plenty of work to do, although I have learned a lot. Listening to the engineers is the key to making progress quickly. And although it’s nice to be quickest, it is still only testing. The races themselves will be a different matter."

Jules sends out his well wishes for Charles' first race in Imola:

And Charles returns it:

Charles might be a rookie, but he impresses his team enough to where they run him in another series concurrently.

Formula Scout would summarize the season:

Leclerc entered Formula Renault 2.0 for his rookie single-season season, embarking on the Alps series for Fortec Motorsports. He quickly became a frontrunner, making the podium at round two at Pau and then twice again at Spa. At Monza he won both races, and followed that with more podiums to secure second place in the championship behind third-year FR2.0 racer Nyck de Vries. Some of Leclerc’s most impressive performances last year came in Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 as a guest entry. He took part in six races and finished second in the last three of those, up against lots of drivers with multiple years of experience in the series.

His first win single-seater win is in Monza, where he has a perfect weekend: he also wins that second race.

Of course, in true Charles fashion, he couldn't stop himself from a little self-criticism after the race:

"My start was not perfect and I’ve lost a place. Than I’ve managed to recover it duelling with Isaakyan. When my team told me of the 10” penalty assigned to Riener, I just focused in keeping my pace. This is a very special day as this is my first win ever in singleseaters."

Charles would finish the season with 199 points, 2 wins, 7 podiums and 1 pole position.

Formula Scout would summarize his performance:

After several starring years on the world karting scene, Leclerc’s car debut season was a long awaited one and it lived up to expectations. A non-score at the Imola opener aside, Leclerc delivered a superb rookie season, maturing and improving round after round, which culminated in a spectacular double victory at Monza and saw a further five podium appearances throughout the campaign. A protege of Nicolas Todt’s All Road Management firm, he has also been superb in his guest Eurocup outings and the chief 2.0 series appears to be a logical next step – one he’s more than ready for. In fact, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him take a higher jump up the ladder than that.

They were right: Charles would take his old karting rival Max Verstappen's now open F3 seat at Van Amersfoort Racing for the 2015 season.

As a final note, this year was also very tragic: Jules' accident would happen in October, on the same day as Charles' final race in Formula Renault.

I'm not going to go into the details, because it feels like it would be disrespectful: it was a tragedy, and it very clearly deeply affected Charles and his family. Jules was an incredible influence for Charles, both personally and professionally.

Through all of this, however, Charles continues into Formula 3.

But that's for the next chapter.

126 notes View Post

mindtheanimals

1 year ago

you seem very very thirsty for seb

also very hungry for him coz hot damn he delish 👄

but most of the times I'm simply endeared by him ( ◜‿◝ )♡

The Chrimer: 2015, F3.

Everyone loves a good rivalry.

Charles and Max's karting history could-- and probably will-- be their own primer, but for Charles' 2015 season only one part really matters: Max jumps from F3 to F1. This casts a long shadow on Charles as his childhood karting rival.

Charles spends most of the year getting asked about seeing Max compete at the highest level of motorsport, like in this segment from a South China Morning Post article about the 2015 Macau Grand Prix:

For his part, however, Leclerc is keeping the focus on what’s right in front of him, rather than on what the horizon might offer as he sets out to tackle the tricky Guia circuit for the first time, knowing, of course, the greats of racing who have gone out there before him and still with comparisons to former VAR – and current Formula One – star Max Verstappen ringing in his ears. “I am taking things step by step,” says Leclerc. “I want to arrive in Formula One when I am more than ready and Formula 3 is a good choice in that I can learn and develop. And I raced Max all through my karting years and we fought each other at the finish, so I have always had the comparisons with him and I am okay with them.”

The jump to F3 is a last minute surprise: Charles had originally been tipped for a full-time Eurocup spot. Eurocup would have been more of the Formula Renault 2.0 level of competition Charles had experienced the previous year; F3 was considered a promotion.

In an interview, Charles was asked why he decided on F3 instead of Eurocup:

"After the season of last year, my manager and I thought that it would be better to jump to F3! Firstly, there are 3 races per weekend and 11 weekends so we drive a lot and so we gain a lot of experience! Then loads of drivers were planning to do it! And I felt really good in the car and the tests went well."

Surprisingly, Charles picks to race for Dutch team Van Amersfoort in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship like Max did the previous year. He essentially steps into his former rival's spot, replacing Max as team leader and taking his former engineer. This was allegedly on Jos Verstappen's suggestion, but there isn't much reference to that connection out there that I could find.

This doesn't help the comparisons.

Formula Scout-- in their 2015 Driver Profile of Charles-- would write:

Leclerc marked himself out as a real prospect in karting – so much so he topped our 2012 ‘karters to watch‘ feature, ahead of Verstappen. But it’s never a foregone conclusion that a successful karter will make a successful car racer. [...] Those performances suggested he would be capable of stepping up to F3, particularly as his old rival Verstappen had made it look easy and didn’t have the benefit of a year of car racing experience. And so he has proven to be. It’s still early days, but Leclerc has so far been the class of a large crop of rookies and taken the fight to proven F3 winners with multiple years of experience already under their belt. His early performances are on a par with what last year’s star rookies Esteban Ocon and Verstappen were doing – in fact, his record of two wins and five podiums from the first six races replicates the 2014 champion’s start. If he keeps it up, he will deserve to be held in the same high esteem as them a few months down the line.

They would ultimately summarize Charles' future as so:

While he’s got plenty in common with his old karting rival and Van Amersfoort F3 predecessor Verstappen, a lesser reputation and sensible management mean he’s unlikely to be making the jump straight up to F1 next year. He will therefore need to sustain this impressive form into an intermediate category like GP2 in order to make the grade.

Even with the comparisons to Esteban and Max, Charles still appears to be able to joke with both at the beginning of the season.

This lightheartedness would be needed, especially when Max was the special F1 driver guest for one of Charles' podiums:

Charles would start the season strong. As a rookie, Charles would top the morning running at the pre-event test of the opening round weekend by nearly half a second.

In true Charles fashion, he's unable to take the W:

"A good day," said Leclerc at the end of the test, after reviewing the results and drawing conclusions. “We have learned a lot, both about the set-up for qualifying and for the race. However, this does not mean that I am automatically one of the leading drivers this weekend as well, testing and racing are two different things. But needless to say, it's my goal to do it."

He would bring this momentum into winning in Silverstone, Hockenheim, Spa-Francorchamps and Nuremberg. I find the races themselves a little dull to break down race-by-race, but if you're interested.. an anon has provided video of every race here.

Charles would explain that:

“We arrived at the first race quite confident but obviously there were still had doubts from some people who didn’t know me when I arrived for testing. We were really fast from the first race which was a bit of a surprise because I was a rookie among all these experienced drivers so they didn’t really expect me. But from another point of view we were prepared, we worked hard and after testing it wasn’t that much of a surprise for us, how we went. We were quite confident.”

However... Charles' season would become inconsistent after a crash in Zandvoort with Lance Stroll would damage his chassis in a way that could never be correctly repaired.

Jules would pass the next week.

Charles would only podium once more during the remaining season, five months later in Macau.

He is quoted as saying:

“It is a good result, but I am never happy when I'm not first. Since I was a child I was never happy when I wasn't first. So, it is the still the same.”

Charles would end up finishing the season in fourth place behind Felix Rosenquist, Antonio Giovinazzi, and Jake Dennis. He'd still have 4 wins, 13 podiums, 3 pole positions and 6 fastest laps, making him the rookie champion over future F1 competitors George Russell, Lance Stroll and Alexander Albon.

Formula Scout would summarize his season:

VAR, like most, couldn’t keep up with Prema in the later part of the season but Leclerc seemed to lose some individual sparkle too. That’s forgivable for a teenage rookie though, particularly with the early-season highs becoming impossible to match. And no young racer should have to say goodbye to a life-long friend and mentor mid-season. Leclerc might not have been champion but he was F3’s standout talent in 2015.

Even with the issues in the later half of the season, he was still tapped to go into GP3 with Todt's team, ART Grand Prix. And he had some lighthearted moments:

(Behind the scenes footage here.)

One of the most lasting legacies of this season, though, is how it would set up the rest of Charles' career.

Charles did go into 2015 with very few sponsors outside of Todt. In a pre-season assessment, Formula Scout summarizes his off-track relationships:

No doubt assisted by the Bianchis’ tutelage, Leclerc signed with Todt Jr’s All Road Management firm in 2011. At present, Leclerc has no ties to F1 teams, but through his work with Felipe Massa, Pastor Maldonado and Bianchi, Todt has dealt with most of them and will be very well-placed to get his protege a role when the time comes. A potential stumbling point is that most F1 teams are already overflowing with some serious sub-F1 prospects, but if he continues to impress as he’s doing at the moment, they could begin falling over each other to find a space for him. Funding-wise, Leclerc benefits from partners usually tied to Todt’s projects, and watch maker Richard Mille (currently a sponsor of the Lotus F1 team) is his loyal main backer. And you’d imagine that being billed as a future F1 star from Monaco could well tempt some further future investment.

Lance Stroll would spend most of his single-seaters career against Charles as the Ferrari-backed driver until 2015, when he left to take a development driver role with Williams.

By this point, the Ferrari Driver Academy was heavily scrutinized to the point where it was speculated that they would do away with the initiative entirely. While Red Bull's junior program had brought Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kyvat to its senior team, no driver from the FDA had successfully made the jump. At the end of 2015, Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene decided to appoint a new head and restructure the program entirely.

Charles was rumored to be the next addition to the Ferrari Driver Academy in November 2015 as part of these changes; by December, articles were already talking as if the signing was inevitable.

In 2020, Charles would talk about visiting Maranello for the first time-- not as a friend of Jules'-- that year with his father:

I went with my father to Maranello (the home of Ferrari). I was 17 years young and extremely shy. I was scared because I didn't know if I was good enough to be included in the programme.

He was. He would end up impressing Ferrari in his two days of testing.

They would announce Charles as a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy in 2016, setting up both his next year and the rest of his career.