Charles Leclerc has been the darling wonderboy of Ferrari for the last few years. Despite some turbulent times recently in their 2022 title fight, Leclerc has been the prioritized person at Maranello. Precisely so, looking at how he smashed the junior series before entering F1, he commends such great treatment. Though, this was not the case forever. When Charles visited the Ferrari HQ for the first time, he did not get the best hospitality.

Talking to GQ Sports in August 2022, Leclerc recalled his first visit to Maranello with a family friend when he was 11 or 12 years old. His family friend was a Ferrari employee, but the young Charles was not allowed on the premises. So he stated how he had a manic dream waiting outside the gates of Ferrari’s HQ.

He said, “So I sat in the car park for two hours, trying to guess what it was like inside. I imagined Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, y’know? With Oompa Loompas running around.”

Leclerc must have been frustrated, getting all kinds of mood swings of boredom, excitement, and impatience. After all, he waited for 2 hours outside the factory of his dream team he wished to drive for in the future.

Either way, he could have not imagined that he would get to witness the Scuderia’s metaphorical “Chocolate factory” in reality as their star driver.

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Regardless, the Monegasque showed immense potential in the feeder series before making his F1 debut. Eventually, Leclerc earned his Ferrari debut commendably in his sophomore year in the sport.

How Charles Leclerc climbed the Junior categories to enter F1

Charles Leclerc was steadily making his name in the junior categories of F1. Leclerc had a lot of his current peers as competition in the 2015 European F3 championship. This included George Russell, Alex Albon, Lance Stroll, and Antonio Giovinazzi. Barring Giovinazzi, Charles finished ahead of every one of them to take 4th place in the standings.

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He showed some great moves as well in that year’s Macau GP, a notable race in the junior categories. Moving on, Leclerc raced in the GP series in 2016. This was a really challenging year for Charles as he fought Alex Albon for the GP3 title.

The duo was separated by the barest of margins for most of the year. Albon was particularly fast in that season and showed some spectacular performances. Although, Leclerc’s consistency helped him overcome Alex’s pace to take the GP3 championship in the end.

As he moved up through the categories, Leclerc got even more dominant and consistent. This was clearly evident in his 2017 F2 winning campaign. Charles won 5 feature races in the inaugural Formula 2 championship with 2 sprint race wins as well. It was total domination as the Monegasque took the F2 title by a margin of 72 points eventually.

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He finally got the call-up from Alfa Romeo for his debut F1 season in 2018. There was something special about Leclerc that provoked Ferrari to give him a fast track to F1 and make him their star driver. What do you think about Leclerc completing the full circle with the Scuderia?