Charles Leclerc signed a new multi-year deal with the legendary Scuderia Ferrari.
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| Photo: Peter Fox |
Quite unexpectedly, Ferrari today announced that Charles Leclerc has extended his contract with the Italian team. The announcement came just before the Monaco GP weekend — Leclerc's home race, as he was born in Monaco.
Leclerc has been part of the red team since the 2019 season, which is quite a long time. Since then, he has completed 155 races in total, making him the Ferrari driver with the second-most race starts, behind only Michael Schumacher, who has 179 starts. However, Leclerc should break this record next season.
Although he has been at Ferrari for so long, he is not yet as successful as he would like to be. Since the 2019 season, he has become an eight-time race winner, stood on the podium 52 times, and secured 27 pole positions. However, the most important achievement is still missing — the very reason why he joined Ferrari in the first place: to become Formula 1 World Champion in red and write his name into the history books as the driver who won the Drivers' Championship with the most successful team in Formula 1 history, Scuderia Ferrari.
"I couldn’t be happier to continue this journey with Scuderia Ferrari HP. It has always been so much more than just a team to me," Leclerc said.
"It’s the team I’ve loved and dreamt of being part of since I was a child, and after all these years it has become a second family.
"Together we’ve shared incredible moments and some tougher ones, but I believe in this team more than ever, and I’m deeply grateful that we will keep pushing side by side toward our shared goal of bringing the world championship back to Maranello.
"Being a Ferrari driver is a dream, but it’s also a responsibility I never take for granted. I’ll continue to give absolutely everything I have to bring this team back to where it belongs, at the very top, for everyone in Maranello, and above all for the tifosi, whose passion is the heartbeat of this Scuderia."
If we look at it from a broader perspective, this decision makes sense. Ferrari is in a solid position at the beginning of a new era, and if they succeed with the ADUO and are able to upgrade their engine, then victory is highly possible.