PUSH THROUGH PAIN: Charle Leclerc's Road to Success

Open Wheel

Charles' first experience in Open-Wheel racing was in the 2014 Formula Renault 2.0 championship, racing for Fortec Motorsports, where he got 7 podiums, finishing second in the championship just behind Dutch driver Nyck De Vries who was racing for Korainen GP, he also won the Junior Championship in Jerez, finishing ahead of Russian driver Matevos Isaakyan. He also raced six rounds in the eurocup edition, getting 3 podiums.

In 2015, Charles Leclerc took a step up into Formula 3, racing in the European championship for Van Amersfoort Racing, a Dutch team. At the opening round of the season in Silverstone, Leclerc inherited pole position for the second and third races of the weekend after original pole-sitter Felix Rosenqvist was excluded for a technical infringement. He took his first race victory in the third race, beating Antonio Giovanazzi, an Italian driver currently in F1 and Jake Dennis, a British driver. He took his second victory at the following round in Hockenheim, winning the third race as well as taking two additional podiums. In Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, he took his third win which put him at the top of the Drivers Standings, yet finished fourth due to car damage he suffered from Lance Stroll, a Canadian driver, in Zandvoort, a Dutch race track. In November 2015, he finished Second in the one-off Macau Grand Prix. In December 2015, Leclerc partook in post-season testing with ART Grand Prix and Arden International.

In February 2016, Nyck De Vries had said Charles Leclerc would race in the 2016 season. Later, Charles would sign for ART Grand Prix. With the team, he would take three victories and claimed the driver's title in Abu Dhabi despite crashing out in the Sprint Race.

In 2017, Charles had taken another step up by joining PREMA racing for the 2017 FIA Formula 2 season alongside Formula 3 rival Antonio Fuoco. He made his debut at Bahrain, where he took pole position for the feature race, but only finished third. In the sprint race, his Prema team chose to take a mid-race pit stop, which is very uncommon in the shorter sprint races. He pushed harder on his medium Pirelli tyres, creating a nine-second lead before pitting. This would drop him down to 14th place, but Leclerc overtook 13 cars and took victory by overtaking Luca Ghiotto on the final lap. After taking pole position for the second time in a row, he then fought off Ghiotto to win again in the Catalunya feature race, despite a radio issue. Unfortunately, luck wasn't with him at his home round, finishing with no points despite the fact he started on pole position as he had to retire with a suspension problem. This retirement would mean he would have to start at the back of the next race, where he would unfortunately collide again and retire. Despite all this, he pulled through and held onto first in the 2017 FIA Formula 2 Driver's Championship. In Baku, he took pole which he converted into a win, despite the fact the race was red flagged five laps before the official ending. In the sprint race, he started eighth, but dropped back to tenth. He then fought up to sixth. In a sudden shock, his championship rival, Oliver Rowland, and Nyck De Vries, retired which bumped Leclerc up to fourth. He had then passed Jordan King and Nicholas Latifi. He now had Nato in his sights, who he passed but was dropped to second because of a 10-second time penalty he was given for ignoring yellow flags. In Austria he took his fifth pole position, and then won the feature race from pole despite coming under pressure from teammate Fuoco, and towards the end, the DAMS of Latifi. He would retire from the sprint race after colliding with Fuoco and spinning out. By taking pole for the sixth time for the next race, at Silverstone, he matched the record for most pole positions in a row, which was set by Stoffel Vandoorne in 2014 and 2015, when the series were called GP2 Series. He would not start from pole in Hungary, despite taking his seventh successive pole position, as he was disqualified for a technical infringement. Despite starting from the back, he was in 12th position by turn 1. Using an alternative tyre strategy that saw him start on the medium tyres, Leclerc was stuck behind Alexander Albon, who was on the same strategy, although he eventually got past and would finish fourth. He would also finish fourth in the sprint race the next day, giving him a 50-point championship lead over Rowland. For the Belgian rounds, Leclerc again took pole and won the race by a convincing margin of over 20 seconds, however his win was disqualified as one of his skidblocks was excessively worn. Having to start in 19th place, Leclerc managed to go back up to 5th place and finish 3.8 seconds behind the race winner, Sérgio Sette Câmara. For the Italian feature race, Leclerc was battling for the lead; on the final lap, however, he was involved in an accident with De Vries. After starting towards the back of the grid for the second consecutive sprint race, Leclerc managed to fight his way back to 9th position, albeit out of the points.