Charles Leclerc Trivia | 40 facts about the F1 driver

Charles Leclerc is a Monégasque racing driver, currently racing in Formula One for Scuderia Ferrari.

Let’s find out more about him!

1. His full name Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc.
2. He was born on 16th of October 1997.
3. He is a Monégasque racing driver.
4. Born to father Hervé Leclerc and mother Pascale.
5. Charles Leclerc grew up the middle child between older brother, Lorenzo and younger brother, Arthur.
6. Throughout his childhood and early career, Leclerc maintained a close relationship with the late Jules Bianchi, to whom he was a godson.
7. His father also raced cars, driving in Formula 3 in the 1980s and 1990s.
8. Hervé died after a long illness, aged 54, just four days before Leclerc would go on to win the feature race at the 2017 Baku Formula 2 round.
9. Leclerc’s brother Arthur currently races in Formula 2.
10. Leclerc is trilingual, being fluent in French, Italian, and English.
11. Although the French pronunciation of his name uses silent final consonants, he has stated that when speaking English he often uses the Anglicized pronunciation.
12. Leclerc has described his religious stance as “[believing] in God, but [not someone] who would pray or go to church.”
13. He is currently racing in Formula One for Scuderia Ferrari.
14. He won the GP3 Series championship in 2016 and the FIA Formula 2 Championship in 2017.
15. Leclerc made his Formula One debut in 2018 for Sauber, a team affiliated with Ferrari, for which he was part of the Ferrari Driver Academy.
16. With Sauber having finished last the year before, Leclerc led the charge to improve its finishing position in the Constructors’ Championship to eighth, and was the higher ranked of the two Sauber drivers.
17. He joined Ferrari the next season and became the second-youngest driver to qualify on pole position in Formula One at the 2019 Bahrain Grand Prix.
18. The 2019 season also saw Leclerc take his first career win in Belgium.
19. He won the FIA Pole Trophy for most pole positions in the 2019 season, becoming the youngest driver to win it, before winning it again in 2022.
20. Charles Leclerc finished runner-up to Max Verstappen in the 2022 World Drivers’ Championship.
21. As of the 2023 Singapore Grand Prix, Leclerc has achieved 5 race wins and 20 pole positions in Formula One.
22. He scored the first grand slam of his career at the 2022 Australian Grand Prix.
23. Charles Leclerc is set to remain at Ferrari until at least the end of the 2024 season.
24. During the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix, the first race of the 2023 season, Leclerc’s car suffered technical problems, forcing the driver to end the race prematurely during lap 41 while on course for a third place finish.
25. The following race, at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Leclerc took a ten-place grid penalty after a new set of control electronics was installed on his car in breach of the allowed quota for the season.
26. Starting from 12th on the grid, Leclerc was able to recover to a seventh place finish behind his teammate Carlos Sainz.
27. Leclerc retired for the second time in three races following a lap 1 collision with Lance Stroll at the Australian Grand Prix.
28. Leclerc scored his and Ferrari’s first pole position of the 2023 season at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, though he failed to convert it to a victory as Sergio Pérez took victory in both the sprint and main race. However, he was on the podium during both races.
29. In the Miami Grand Prix, Leclerc started seventh after crashing during Q3.
30. He finished the race in the same position to cap off a frustrating weekend. In his home event the Monaco Grand Prix, he qualified third but started sixth after being given a three-place grid penalty for impending during Q3. In the race, he finished sixth.
31. In Spain, he qualified nineteenth and started the race from the pitlane. He would go on to finish eleventh in the race.
32. In Canada Leclerc qualified eleventh and started tenth. His team opted not to pit during a safety car which left Leclerc and Sainz in fourth and fifth position respectively.
33. The gamble would pay off, with both drivers building enough of a gap to those behind them to make a pit stop and rejoin in the same positions. Leclerc would finished the race fourth, less than five seconds shy of third-placed Hamilton.
34. In Austria, he and teammate Sainz secured a Ferrari front-row start behind Verstappen.
35. Leclerc meanwhile qualified sixth for the sprint before penalties were applied that dropped him down to ninth. Leclerc finished twelfth in the sprint. During the main race, Leclerc remained behind Verstappen for a majority of the race before Verstappen had his mandatory stop on lap 24, which Leclerc was able to capitalise upon. This allowed him to lead a race, his first since Azerbaijan. Over the next nine laps, Verstappen would close up to him and overtake him with DRS. Leclerc would finish second in the race.
36. Leclerc achieved his third podium finish of the season in the main race at the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix, after taking pole position in qualifying.
37. Leclerc is also an avid fan of football, and supports AS Monaco.
38. His zodiac sign is Libra.
39. Charles Leclerc’s current girlfriend is 21-year-old Alexandra Saint Mleux. Rumours of Charles and Alexandra’s relationship first began to surface on TikTok in March 2023 following the comments of some eagle-eyed fans who believed that Mleux was briefly in the background of a video of Leclerc at Paris Fashion Week.
40. He has one black Labrador, that is his beloved pet.