5 hours Ago By Elizabeth Blackstock
The 2024 season was a fruitful one for Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who ultimately finished third in the World Drivers’ Championship. Wins at Monaco and Monza were dreams come true — but Leclerc wants more. In fact, he’s already started dreaming of a championship for himself — something Leclerc is confident he can help bring home after declaring Ferrari the “next team” to be World Champions.
Of the three wins Charles Leclerc secured during the F1 2024 season, there are two that stand out more than most: Monaco and Monza. “At the end, Monaco and Monza are the two races that made me dream more than others,” Leclerc recently told the Box Box Box podcast . And there are some fairly straightforward reasons for that.
Leclerc was born and raised in the principality of Monaco, making that Grand Prix his home race, and naturally one he would love to win. And, as a Ferrari driver, no race brings out the passion of the tifosi quite like the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Reflecting on his accomplishments, Leclerc told the podcast that “Of course, you always dream of your first victory when you are a child in Formula 1, and you don’t think about any specific race because only the fact of winning one Grand Prix is so special when you are so young.
“But then you get into Formula 1. I got my first victory in Spa, and then you straight away think about, what are the victories that you really want to achieve in your career? “And there were only two, really. It’s Monza and Monaco.
” 👉 The story behind the huge missing piece in Ferrari’s trophy cabinet 👉 Four big reasons why Lewis Hamilton ditched Mercedes for Ferrari The magnitude of those events is not lost on Leclerc, who said he cherished the “special feeling” he got from winning those events. Now, though, it’s time to think bigger. “Now it doesn’t matter where I win,” he said.
“I just want as many wins as possible. And just being able to have the World Championship, that’s all that matters to me.” Next season, Leclerc will be joined at Ferrari by seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton; both drivers will by vying for a chance at being the first driver to deliver the team a World Championship since 2007.
Leclerc, though, isn’t daunted by the task. When asked if he felt that securing a WDC would be harder than simply accomplishing race wins, he answered, “I don’t think so. “To get to Formula 1, you don’t only require talent and hard work, but you also need to have a bit of luck to find yourself in the right place at the right moment.
“And I feel like now luck is secondary, and it’s not a point anymore. “It’s all about us, how well we are working as a team, and the job we are doing as a team to get into the World Championship. I feel like we are working well.
” Despite his confidence in his team, though, Leclerc did acknowledge that F1 is a “relative sport,” where one team’s performance can be easily outshone by that of another team who happened to find a particularly fruitful upgrade package. Teams like McLaren and Mercedes proved in 2024 that they can start mounting a challenge. “We’ve got a lot of hard work to do in the next few years,” Leclerc acknowledged.
“But I believe in it. “As I said when I signed again with Ferrari and renewed my contract, I love Ferrari so much, but I know that in order to give the best and to extract the best out of me, I need to believe in the project 100%, and I am sure that Ferrari is the next team that will be world champions. “We’ve just got to keep working.
” Read next: Lewis Hamilton now finally has a chance to escape the ghosts of Abu Dhabi 2021.
