Charles Leclerc: Ferrari’s unassuming F1 star shaped by tragedy

The 24-year-old was immersed in motor sport from a young age, a road not without personal hardships. He is now reaping the rewards of his hard work and his rivalry with Max Verstappen could run and run, writes Lawrence Ostlere

Leclerc looks set to challenge for a world title after years of disappointment for the Ferrari team (Getty)

Charles Leclerc considers himself a “real Monegasque”; not the sort that arrives in Monaco with a bulging bank account and a significantly lower tax bill but the natives who were born and schooled there. His parents, Hervé and Pascale, were not poor but he did not grow up accustomed to the flash Monte Carlo lifestyle many might imagine. He is proud of his beginnings, and jokes that the typical Monegasque is “like the French, but maybe more polite”.

Leclerc is certainly that. The laid back Ferrari driver and current leader of the F1 world championship gets on with everybody and has only love for his rivals – “I have no enemies in the paddock,” he says. His name, which sounds like a sweet delicacy in French, is regularly botched by the English-speaking world with a hard “z” on the end of Charles and a firm “erk” at the end of Leclerc, but he never corrects the mispronunciation. “I like both,” he says with a smile.

The unassuming 24-year-old was immersed in motor sport from a young age. Hervé was a Formula 3 driver in the 1980s and 1990s, and later he would take Charles and his two siblings (older brother Lorenzo and younger brother Arthur, now a Formula 3 driver himself) to a local karting track owned by his best friend and fellow racer Philippe Bianchi.