Charles Leclerc made his World Cup debut in 2018 with Sauber, but in 2016, while studying at the Ferrari Racing Academy and racing in the GP3 series, he started working with Haas F1 as a “development driver”. Simply put, he was an intern with the American team and it was logical to assume that Leclerc would start his Formula 1 career in this team.
But it turned out differently: in 2017 Charles won the title in Formula 2, where he had no equal that season – by the way, the Russian driver Artyom Markelov then became vice-champion of the youth series. Then Leclerc was invited to Sauber and everything that happened after that is already history.
Why Leclerc made his F1 debut with the Swiss team and not Haas was explained by Günter Steiner on Sky Sports.
“He was a Ferrari driver and it’s clear we can get him for just one year,” said the head of Haas F1. – It did not suit us then, because such options usually do not correspond to the interests of the team. You train a rider, teach him and if he is really good, he immediately takes the next career step.
It turns out that you just tested such a rider before going to the top team. We didn’t want that. I don’t know if he wanted to play for Haas himself, Ferrari would let him go to us for a year or not, but Leclerc signed with Sauber. We didn’t negotiate to get it at all.”
In 2016, Charles spent four Friday practice sessions behind the wheel of a Haas car and already made a very good impression on the team.
“In the very first practice it’s hard to understand anything, but smart and fast riders usually don’t try to draw attention to themselves right away, because they don’t want to take any risks,” added Steiner. – Of course, in such a situation for a young racer, there is nothing worse than crashing the car. People will always remember this, and it is already impossible to get rid of it. But Charles acted very reasonably then, he was just trying to understand the car’s characteristics better and obviously did everything we asked him to.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
