Charles Leclerc and the Future of Ferrari
When you think about Formula 1, you think of Ferrari. When you think about Ferrari, you think of Formula 1. The prancing horse has been a part of Formula 1 since the sports’ inception in 1950 and is the most successful team in the history of the sport. It is also, arguably, the most popular one. As former Ferrari driver and four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel once put it, “Everyone is a Ferrari fan. Even if they say they’re not, they are Ferrari fans.” Within the sport, Ferrari has boasted a rostrum of drivers throughout history that showcases some of the best of the best from every era. Alberto Ascari. Mike Hawthorn. Guiseppe Farina. Juan Manuel Fangio. Jacky Ickx. Mario Andretti. Niki Lauda. Gilles Villeneuve. Nigel Mansell. Alain Prost. Michael Schumacher. Lewis Hamilton. The list goes on. It’s the team that everyone wants to drive for, no matter what. Ayrton Senna was one of them too. The Brazilian had said that he wanted to end his career at Ferrari and conceivably would have gone on to take the deal with the team that instead went to Michael Schumacher. One can only wonder what the two could have achieved together were it not for the events of Imola 1994.
But it is another of the Ferrari drivers, one that currently competes for them in Formula 1, who is the focus here - and that is none other than Charles Leclerc.
Ahead of his home race, the Monaco Grand Prix, Leclerc and Ferrari announced that they had extended their partnership on a new multi-year deal. What initially comes across as a formality, given his already long tenure with the team, has in fact got a lot more depth to it and speaks to both Leclerc’s and Ferrari’s intentions heading into the future.
Back in 2016, Leclerc was a development driver for Haas and Ferrari before making his Formula 1 Grand Prix debut two years later in 2018 for Sauber. He was with the team for one season where he regularly finished inside the top ten. His best finish in his rookie season was P6 which he achieved at that year’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix held in the country’s capital of Baku.
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The Monegasque then joined Ferrari in 2019 and has gone on to compete in 156 Grand Prix and counting for the team with eight Grand Prix wins, twenty-seven Pole Positions and fifty-two podiums to his name. In 2022, he had his highest finishing position of second place overall in the Championship behind Max Verstappen after battling the Dutchman for the title in the first half of the season. Since then, he’s finished in a highest position of third overall, achieved in 2024. At the time of writing, he sits fourth overall in the 2026 Championship.
But it was back in his second season in the sport and in his debut year with Ferrari that Leclerc first demonstrated his potential. Charles finished in fourth place overall that year, twenty-four points ahead of his esteemed teammate Sebastian Vettel. His first podium both in Formula 1 and for Ferrari came in just the second race that year in Bahrain where he also claimed his first Pole Position and Fastest Lap. A further four podiums came his way before he picked up his first Grand Prix win at that year’s Belgian Grand Prix. That weekend, and the one that followed in Monza, would change everything for Leclerc and show the world that he was - and is - the real deal.
Leclerc’s close friend Anthoine Hubert was killed in a crash that weekend in Spa while competing in Formula 2. His death stunned the entire motorsport world and for Leclerc, it was the latest in a line of devastating losses that he’d had to endure in his own life up to that point. Leclerc had lost his father, an instrumental and irreplaceable member of his motorsport journey, two years earlier. He had also lost his Godfather, Jules Bianchi, after he was killed following a crash at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix when competing for Marussia. Motorsport is dangerous. That has never been disputed. It’s something that each and every driver around the world acknowledges and the risk they take every time they go racing is an accepted one. While the fatality rate has decreased over the decades, there will never be a 100% guarantee that a driver will walk away from any race. At one of motorsport’s most iconic venues, Leclerc and the wider motorsport world were made aware of this once again in brutal fashion.
Having qualified on Pole Position for Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix, Leclerc now had to reckon with this starkest of reminders about what was at stake every time he got into the car. Jackie Stewart famously called time on his Formula 1 career immediately after the death of François Cevert in 1973 and it would be surprising if the thought of stopping didn’t cross Leclerc’s mind that day, if only for a moment. Instead, Leclerc remained.
What followed was one of Leclerc’s best drives to date in Formula 1. Controlling the race throughout, Leclerc navigated pit stops, safety car restarts and a constantly attacking Lewis Hamilton to claim his first win in Formula 1 just under a second ahead of the then Mercedes driver. Fittingly, it would be the first time since Michael Schumacher in 1992, when he raced for Benetton, that a driver would secure their maiden F1 victory at Spa. Leclerc dedicated the win to Hubert.
“This one’s for Anthoine.”
One week later on Ferrari’s home soil in Monza, Italy, Leclerc would repeat this feat as he took both Pole Position and the race win, ahead of the Mercedes duo of Bottas and Hamilton. It was the first time a Ferrari driver had won the Italian Grand Prix since Fernando Alonso in 2010. Understandably, the Tifosi went wild and provided Formula 1 with a dazzling spectacle of celebrations that captured just how much that victory meant to them. Those two Grand Prix alone perfectly demonstrated why Ferrari recruited Leclerc and why they’ve continued to build and develop together in the time since then.
Partnered over the years by Sebastian Vettel, Carlos Sainz Jr and now, Lewis Hamilton, Leclerc has been a constant feature at the Scuderia for what is now his eighth season in red. While he missed out on the title in 2022, his 2024 season showed that he’d not only learnt from that experience but that he was also now, and remains, ready to fight all season long for a Championship should the opportunity arise. That season, Leclerc finished twenty-one of the twenty-four races in the top five and finished on the podium for thirteen of those. It was a staggering run of performances and reaffirmed the notion that this was a driver that Ferrari could, and should, win World Championships with.
It was also the year that Charles finally realised one of his dreams - winning his home race in Monaco. Up to that point, his best finish on the streets of the principality had been fourth. The rest of the time had been filled with bad luck and crashes galore. Starting from Pole in 2024, the ultimate endurance test for Leclerc would now await him. But as had already been witnessed in Spa and Monza years before, Leclerc was ready and able once again to blow everyone away.
“His career was finished without the intervention of the late Jules Bianchi who said to Ferrari you’ve got to take this guy, you’ve got to make sure he gets to Formula 1. And what a gift that was to give. In 2017, Charles Leclerc lost his father and in his final days, he told his father a white lie. That he’d made it to Formula 1; that he’d signed the contract. It wasn’t true then but his driving has made it true now, and look what he’s done with the opportunity. The grandstands he saw built as a kid growing up now rise for him and for the first time in 93 years this fabled race is won by one of their own. Charles Leclerc wins the Monaco Grand Prix to achieve his dream.”
Charles Leclerc became only the second Monegasque in history after Louis Chrion in 1931 to win the Monaco Grand Prix. Finishing in itself is its own reward at a circuit like Monaco. To win is to earn one third of the fabled triple crown and to be victorious at Formula 1’s most coveted circuit. It’s one of the few races that every racing driver, not just in Formula 1, wants to win - and Leclerc had now won it.
Looking back through the rest of his time at Ferrari so far and you’ll see some truly breathtaking moments. Leclerc is one of the fiercest and cleanest racers out there with numerous examples to showcase that. Take his duel with Verstappen in Bahrain in 2022 or with Hamilton in Qatar in 2024 or against Russell in Zandvoort in 2025 as just three occasions where this was on display. His car placement, race management and strategy calls (often making better calls than the strategists themselves at Ferrari) have all been refined over time and this has been reflected in his results.
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Fast forward to this season and while Leclerc’s bad luck in Monaco may have returned last weekend with his unfortunate crash towards the end of the Grand Prix, his ability and continued potential remain clear to all. Prior to his exit from the race in Monaco and Lance Stroll’s before him that initially neutralized the race, Leclerc was the third and final driver on the lead lap, running in P3. Let that sink in.
Monaco is also the first Grand Prix that he’s failed to score points at this year and he already has two podiums to his name from Australia and Japan respectively. In the latter, he put on a fantastic show as he retook third from Russell around the outside into Turn 1 - a move that requires bold confidence and skill behind the wheel to pull off successfully. That was just one of the latest instances of his aforementioned racecraft being put to good use so far this season - his wheel to wheel battle with Hamilton around the Shanghai International Circuit in China and his back and forth fight with Russell for the lead in Australia being the other two immediate stand out moments. It’s in Leclerc’s DNA to race hard and when given the opportunity, he goes all in.
Monaco may not have been kind to him but with five races across the next seven weeks across Europe, the good news is that there are plenty of opportunities for him to reset and join Hamilton as they attempt to hunt down the might of Mercedes together. While a Championship run already looks unlikely for Leclerc in 2026, this contract extension and the positive step forwards that the team have made overall shows why Leclerc is the only other person for the job of racing for Ferrari alongside Hamilton. Together, they’re the most successful and formidable line-up on the grid. Why wouldn’t you want to keep that? Only Verstappen, Norris and Alonso have World Championships to their name but with how embedded Leclerc is at Ferrari, starting again from scratch with any of these would feel counter productive. Besides, Hamilton has the same number of World Championships as all three of those drivers combined.
“But Charles is a great personality, a great guy. I wish he can one day be a World Champion. I think it would be great, of course, for him. He’s been working very hard for years. It would be great for Monaco and of course for Ferrari.”
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Behind Leclerc in the Ferrari pipeline of junior drivers there is talent too - but none that should worry Charles anytime soon. That works both ways as it gives Leclerc, Hamilton and Ferrari the time they need to get the team back to winning ways and for them to reap the rewards of that while also setting up their eventual replacements with an organization not only with a history of winning but the capability to achieve that in the modern day and into the future.
Ollie Bearman is still firmly linked with the team and will most likely race for Ferrari one day. But the British driver is currently racing for TGR Haas and is a firm part of their plans to move further up the pecking order. Elsewhere in the Ferrari stable are Dino Beganovic, Rafael Camara, Alba Larsen, Niccolo Maccagnani and Tuukka Taponen. Beganovic and Camara are currently competing in Formula 2 but neither are setting the series alight. At least one more season there for each is needed before they’re considered for a seat in Formula 1 - likely with a team such as Haas that is linked to Ferrari rather than at Ferrari itself. For Larsen, Maccagnani and Taponen, it’s too soon to make judgements. Each is on their own unique development path and by the time any of them may be ready for Formula 1, a substantial number of years will have passed. But it’s good that Ferrari are keeping one eye on the future beyond their current roster. Mercedes have shown what is possible by successfully doing this with their current driver line up of Russell and Antonelli and it’s not surprising therefore to see Ferrari wanting to emulate that.
Today though, when you think about Ferrari, you think of Charles Leclerc. When you think about Charles Leclerc, you think of Ferrari. That is very much by design. A fundamental cornerstone of their operation, Leclerc is their past, present and future.
Michael Schumacher is the only driver ahead of him in Formula 1 history to have remained with the team for the longest time. The seven time World Champion spent eleven seasons with the team from 1996 onwards. By comparison, Leclerc is currently in his eighth season with the team. With this new multi-year agreement, it’s possible that Leclerc will at least equal or surpass Schumacher’s record, albeit with less success on track to show for it, even if he wins every Championship between now and the end of his current contract. But regardless of what is to come in what everyone hopes is a period of rejuvenation for Ferrari, the team is now determinedly set on a path towards not only recapturing the success they’re known for but to build upon that and forge a new chapter with Charles Leclerc firmly at the helm.