Charles Leclerc's Unwavering Commitment to Ferrari
Charles Leclerc says he never really hesitated. When Ferrari put a new multi-year contract on the table in the middle of a turbulent 2026 campaign, the answer came from instinct as much as analysis.
“It just felt right,” he said. “This is where I belong, for now.”
For a driver enduring two DNFs and a lonely P8 across Monaco, Barcelona and Austria, it was hardly the obvious moment to double down on a project that has so often promised more than it delivered. Yet Leclerc did exactly that – and he is clear about why.
A huge part of it wears a Ferrari shirt and an ever-present frown in the garage: Fred Vasseur.
“I believe in Fred 200 per cent,” Leclerc insisted on F1’s official podcast, Beyond The Grid. “Fred is a big reason why I have signed again as well.”
A bond that goes beyond business
Leclerc’s relationship with Vasseur predates Ferrari and Formula 1 stardom. The pair have known each other for years, and that familiarity has hardened into trust.
“It feels like I know Fred since forever,” Leclerc said. “He's the kind of person that you speak once and… it's the values. There's just something that was naturally working from the beginning and you cannot quite explain that.”
At Maranello, that chemistry has become a cornerstone of Leclerc’s commitment. This is not just a driver signing up for a fast car. It is a driver throwing his weight behind a project and a person.
“We've known each other for many years now and to be able to work with him in the team I've always loved is a privilege,” he added. “The bond is stronger than just a work, business relationship.”
The emotional pull of Ferrari remains powerful. Leclerc has been part of the Ferrari family far longer than his F1 debut in red in 2019. The dream has never changed.
“I don't want to give up on my ultimate goal, which is to become a World Champion with Ferrari,” he said. “I believe in the project, I believe in every single person of the team.”
He points to a more aggressive Ferrari, one that is pushing hard on development.
“We are in a year where we've been showing innovation. We are very aggressive also in the production plan and in the upgrades we are bringing. That gives me lots of hopes for the future.”
Living in Hamilton’s shadow – and fighting back
The first half of 2026 underlined how ruthless Formula 1 can be, even inside the same garage.
While Leclerc wrestled with inconsistency and frustration, Lewis Hamilton thrived. The seven-time World Champion stacked up two P2 finishes in Canada and Monaco, then delivered his first Ferrari victory in Barcelona. Same car, same team, wildly different fortunes.
From the outside, the solution might look simple: copy Hamilton. Inside the cockpit, it is anything but.
“It's not as easy as, ‘Oh, Lewis is doing that. I'll just do the same,’” Leclerc said. “Lewis is an incredibly talented driver and has a natural driving style that is his and he's the best in the world for that particular driving style.”
Trying to mimic that, he admitted, is “very tricky”. So he went another way. Instead of forcing himself into Hamilton’s mould, Leclerc pushed the team to bend the car back towards him.
“I tried to push more into trying to find ways to have this car a bit more fitted to my driving style,” he explained. “I found a few things in the data that was just not working.”
The answers did not come from a single magic line of telemetry.
“In Formula 1, it's not always black and white,” he said. “It's not like you sit in front of your computer, look at the data and say, ‘Oh, this is one tenth and a half of a second. Let's change that.’ It's not as easy as that. It's intuition. It's feeling.”
The breakthrough came at Silverstone. Ferrari made changes that weekend, and Leclerc responded with victory. The direction, finally, felt right.
“The car is constantly changing so it's not like I can really go back to that feeling I had in Melbourne,” he said. “It's evolving but my goal is to get into the car and not overthink.”
Chasing the “flow state”
For Leclerc, the battle is as much mental as mechanical. He is convinced that over-analysis can strangle performance.
“When you overthink, you know that you are losing time on the table,” he said. “Our sport is not a lot about reacting on what's happening on the car. It's more about anticipating and feeling the car.”
That anticipation is everything. Turn-in, brake release, throttle pick-up – they all have to happen without a driver consciously processing each step.
“Getting into a corner, I need to know exactly the way the car will behave so I don't have to overthink about things,” he explained. “I think overthinking is killing performance.”
What he chases is what athletes across sports call the “flow state”.
“When things come naturally, that's where I think the flow state that we speak about, racing drivers or athletes as well, the flow state when things just flow naturally is really where you use 100 per cent of your potential,” he said. “When you've got to overthink things, that’s where it becomes trickier.”
Can Ferrari really hunt down Mercedes?
For all the optimism, the standings remain blunt. Ferrari sit second in the Constructors’ Championship, but 87 points adrift of Mercedes. The gap is real, and the calendar is shrinking.
Leclerc refuses to burn energy on predictions.
“It’s not something I really want to put energy towards thinking about too much,” he said. “This championship will be won with upgrades. The upgrades are so powerful with these cars.”
With the current regulations stripping away downforce compared to previous eras, every development counts.
“We've got a lot less downforce than we used to in the past, so every point of downforce you add to this car has got a much bigger influence on how the car feels like on track,” he explained. “So the pecking order can change so quickly one way or another.”
His approach is simple: narrow the lens.
“I'm very much focused race by race and not really thinking about the long-term picture about if we've got a real shot with that championship,” he said. “But surely until it's not finished, I'll keep believing in it and we'll see how it goes.”
The dream remains unchanged, sharpened by the years of near-misses and heartbreak in red.
“The championship is something that I will dream of ticking off one day, particularly with the red team, this has been a dream of mine since many years,” Leclerc said. “I feel we are getting closer. When will that be? I don’t know, I hope as early as it can be.”
He has tied his future to Ferrari and to Fred Vasseur, trusting that the project, the people and the car will finally align. Now the question hangs over the rest of 2026 and beyond: will belief, this time, be enough?
