That side of his hometown does not
bother him, he says — his
grandfather ran a successful business,
but his own parents were by no
means wealthy — nor does it affect
his enjoyment of living there. He
tends to stick with his school friends
and girlfriend, Charlotte Sine, an
architecture student.
And it was not growing up in
Monaco that led to his dream of being
a racing driver, even though one of
his earliest memories of the race is
watching it from the balcony of a
friend’s apartment at the exit of turn
one at about the age of five.
By luck, the day he decided to
pretend he was sick to miss school, his
mother was working, so his father,
Herve, had to take care of him. He
was heading to the go-kart track in
Brignoles owned by his best friend
Philippe Bianchi — the father of
former F1 driver Jules Bianchi, who
died in 2015 from injuries sustained
nine months earlier at the Japanese
Grand Prix. Jules was Leclerc’s
godfather.
That was Leclerc’s first real taste of
karting and he was hooked. His
father, who had been a Formula
Three driver in the 1980s and 1990s,
continued to play a crucial role in his
son’s racing career until his earlyM
onaco, as a race track, is
a place of heartbreak
for Charles Leclerc.
Every year since his first
home race there in 2017,
when he was in Formula Two, he has
been involved in an incident and not
finished the race.
Back then it was suspension failure
that cost him an almost certain win.
The next year, Leclerc’s first in
Formula One, when he raced for
Sauber, he had brake failure and
crashed into another car. In 2019, now
with Ferrari, a qualifying strategy
error resulted in him being knocked
out in the first session, before a
collision ruined his Sunday. There
was no Monaco Grand Prix in 2020
because of Covid-19 but last year that
bad luck returned.
The weekend had started positively
as he became the first Monegasque to
clinch pole position in the principality
for 85 years. But he crashed moments
later and the damage to his car was so
bad that he could not start the race
on the Sunday. Not since 1931, when
Louis Chiron took the chequered flag,
has someone from Monaco won their
home race.
There was more bad luck only
weeks ago, when Leclerc crashed Niki
Lauda’s 1974 Ferrari during the
Monaco Historic Grand Prix. So is he
jinxed at his home track?
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t want to
believe in that,” the 24-year-old says
before this weekend’s Monaco Grand
Prix. “The last few years haven’t been
the best. And obviously, I’ve always
had one thing or another that
basically, we didn’t finish any races
since I arrived in Formula One. And
even before that, but I don’t believe in
bad luck. And I’m pretty sure that
things will go my way this year.”
He has reasons for optimism.
Ferrari have provided him with a
potential championship-winning car
this season and for the first five races
of the year he was leading the drivers’
standings — until Spain last weekend
when his engine failed while he led
and he was forced to retire from the
race. In doing so, he handed the lead
in the title fight to his Red Bull rival
Max Verstappen, who went on to win.
The gap is only six points, easily
flipped with a win this weekend, if the
luck can go his way, which is not soeasy to come by for Leclerc, history
suggests.
But if his experience on the
Monaco street circuit has been pretty
miserable, as a place to live he says it
is “very special” and “different to what
people would expect”.
“I don’t live it like the glamorous
city that everyone sees it for during
the grand prix,” he says. “But overall,
throughout the whole year, it feels
like a village. Everyone knows each
other and the actual people that are
staying there the whole year are real
Monegasque and we all know each
other. So it’s like a big, big family.”
Of the nearly 40,000 residents in
the tiny principality sandwiched
between the south of France and the
Mediterranean, just under 10,000 are
actually considered Monegasque. The
rest are foreigners who have mostly
moved there for the tax advantages.Drivers’ standings top six
Max Verstappen Red Bull 110
Charles Leclerc Ferrari 104
Sergio Pérez Red Bull 85
George Russell M e r c e d e s 74
Carlos Sainz Jnr Ferrari 65
Lewis Hamilton M e r c e d e s 4 6a full review”. BC is waiting for further
clarification on the matter from the
UCI, the world governing body.
However, trans female cyclists are
continuing to compete in the women’s
category. On May 8, Maxine Yates, a
transgender downhill mountain bike
racer, won the women’s 19+ category in
the second round of BC’s DH National
Series event at Fort William, Scotland,
a competition in which ranking points
were available. Yates is ranked first inBritish Cycling ‘not enforcing own rules’ on transgender riders
the senior female category on the BC
website.
The rider who finished second in the
race at Fort William, Jane Page, has
complained to BC that it is not applying
its own rules and has called for Yates to
be disqualified. Page said that it had
proved difficult even to make contact
with the appropriate officials at BC but
she has now been informed that the
matter has been passed to the govern-
ing body’s compliance team. A BC
spokesman said that the compliance
team was investigating the matter.Yates claims that she contacted BC
after the suspension of the transgender
rules to see if she could still race and
that a member of the events team at BC
told her that the “policy was only going
to affect new licence applicants”.
“As I already had a licence and was
not competing at an elite level, I was
allowed to compete, that is what BC
informed me,” Yates said. “I’ve taken
their advice at every turn and am dis-
appointed BC have let this go on as far
as it has. I have followed their rules.”
Page said there was no reference toexisting or new licences in the state-
ment issued by BC on April 8 and no
suggestion that the suspension of the
policy applied only to elite-level races.
The Times has been sent evidence of
transgender cyclists continuing to
compete in female road races.
“BC are not enforcing their own
rules,” Page said. “Like a lot of women I
feel let down. There were only a dozen
or so women competing at Fort Willi-
am, among more than 300 riders, but
situations like this are hardly going to
encourage more women to participate.”death after an illness in
2018.
At the time Leclerc
was racing in F2 and his
father’s death came
only a few days before
the Azerbaijan
Grand Prix. Leclerc
won both races that
weekend (though
was later demoted in
one) and went on to
win the
championship.
Racing remains in
the family, with his
younger brother,
Arthur, competing in
F3 this season. The
eldest brother,
Lorenzo, acts as a
manager/adviser for
Arthur.
Leclerc’s battle
with Verstappen has
dominated this
season. The pair
know each other
well having grown
up through the
karting ranks at
the same time,
with only 16 days
separating them inSport
‘My Monaco is not the glamour on TV’
age. At that time they “hated each
other”, Leclerc says, but that has
changed now as they have got older.
“It’s nice to see how much the
relationship has changed because
obviously, in karting, we hated each
other. We were kids. And everything
was very different,” he says. “You had
a dream to arrive in Formula One.
Now we are, not more relaxed about
it, but of course, we have both
achieved one of our dreams, which is
to be in Formula One.”
It certainly appears that they race
hard but fair and treat each other
with respect on and off the track,
something that was missing in the
latter stages of Verstappen’s battle
with Lewis Hamilton last year.
However, with only six races of this
22-race calendar done, Leclerc is
under no illusion that their
relationship is likely to change.
“Of course, there will be tension at
one point, I’m pretty sure because we
are fighting,” he says. “If we keep
going and keep fighting for the
championship, things might get tense,
but there is still a big, big respect.”
Leclerc’s hope is that it will not be a
two-way fight for the championship
this season, but that Mercedes can
build on their impressive outing in
Spain last weekend to mount a fight.
To be fighting Hamilton, Leclerc says,
would be “special”.
“When you are fighting
Lewis and know everything
that he has achieved, it’s
extremely special. I always
dreamt to be one day
fighting with him.
“Seeing the
progress that
they’ve made,
obviously the race
[last weekend], that
was incredible so
I’m pretty sure
that it’s a matter of
time before he gets
into that fight too,
which will be
amazing because it
will be since a long
time that we had a
fight with three, with
three teams, and
obviously having
Lewis in the fight
will make it even
more special.”
Monaco has always
been something of a
bogey track for
Mercedes, no matter
how good their car.
It is also one for
Leclerc, but he is
hoping his luck is
about to change.Charles Leclerc tells
Rebecca Clancy about
hating Max Verstappen
in his youth and his dire
record on home track
continued from back
Yates says she has followed BC’s rulesBRYN LENNON/GETTY IMAGESLeclerc on his way to qualifying on pole in Monaco last year — before crashing. Below, with his student girlfriend, Charlotte66 Thursday May 26 2022 | the times