CHARLES LECLERC 

Jakub Ondruš

Today, I am going to write an article about one of the most talented drivers on the grid - Charles Leclerc. Charles Leclerc is a Ferrari driver from Monaco, he is 23 years old.

Before Formula 1 career, Charles became the youngest driver of the go-karts championship in France. Charles was showing and still is that he is very talented. When he won the Formula 2 championship in 2017 with Prema, his dad was dying. Charles told him he had signed a contract with Ferrari (at that moment, it wasn't true). He wanted to make his father happy because his father always wanted him to be in Formula 1 and to be world champion. In reality, he signed a contract with Alfa Romeo.

In his first season, he totally destroyed his much more experienced teammate Marcus Ericsson and in Baku (the fifth race in the season) he came to the sixth place. That was brilliant drive from him. A whole season he has also got some good results. Alfa Romeo is a junior team of Ferrari so Ferrari was watching him in 2018 so for 2019 and 2020 season Charles signed a contract with Ferrari so eventually his father's dream came true.

In his second race for Ferrari - Bahrain GP 2019, he was leading a race but his car had some problem with the engine so he almost lost the podium. But still it was his first podium in his second race for Ferrari. In Austrian GP 2019, he was leading the grand prix too, but two laps before the finish he was overtaken by Max Verstappen. He won his first race in Spa in Belgium. He could have celebrated the win, but his friend Anthoine Hubert had died the day before the Formula 2 race, so he did not celebrate it that much, but paid tribute to Antoine. But after a couple of days he won the grand prix of the Ferrari team in Monza in Italy in front of "Tifosi" (so called Ferrari fans). In the same year he took a lot of poles and podiums so Ferrari extended his contract till 2024.

In 2020 Ferrari didn't build a good car so he was able to get only two lucky podiums, in Austria and in Great Britain. He was close to a podium in Turkey but he locked up in a twelfth corner in the last lap and he came fourth. Fun fact: He defeated another experienced teammate Sebastian Vettel in both seasons 2019 and 2020.

Edited by AM and JF