Charles Leclerc Once Secured Shocking Podium Despite Major Adversity: “He Drove With Knife in His Mouth”

Ever since his karting days, Charles Leclerc has been tipped to have the skill set to become a future world champion and the young Monegasque never missed a chance in showing that off to either his team or his competitors. So much so that, one time Leclerc was adamant to continue racing despite major adversity.

In 2013, Leclerc was competing in the South Garda Winter Cup with the ART team and caught a high fever during the race in Lonato. But that did not hold Leclerc back from competing and beating his rivals.

A Twitter user uploaded a part of an interview that revealed Leclerc’s ART mechanic, Marco Lombardi, recalling, “He was sick and physically weak, at the end of the day he was completely wrecked.”

Leclerc had come down with a high fever of 102 degrees Celsius and despite being told to skip at least the last session of FP3, the young Monegasque remained adamant. “He wanted to hop on the kart and drive, regardless of everything,” Lombardi recalled. Eventually, Leclerc won the podium in Lonato.

Prima vittoria di Charles Leclerc al suo esordio in KZ2 con la febbre a 39°C pic.twitter.com/wjo6beuf2R

— tati ☁️ charles leclerc 🏎 (@f1tati) May 10, 2023

Charles Leclerc tormented his mechanics

Furthermore, the interview uploaded on Twitter revealed that Leclerc wanted to be on the top no matter what. His ART mechanic, Armando Filino, spoke about his experience with Leclerc and revealed that he had five or six more drivers like the Monegasque driver such as Bianchi, Barnicoat, Harvey, and Hanley, but Leclerc was the one who had more hunger than the others.

Filino said, “The others had a bit more patience, they knew they had to learn and knew that sometimes somebody was better and there was little to do. Charles, on the contrary, refuses these eventualities.”

Even when Leclerc knew that other teams were stronger on a certain circuit, he had to do something to stay in front of them. “With this goal in mind he tormented all of us, me on the chassis, Franco Dridi on the engine, and the telemetrics. It was an obsession,” Filino further explained.

Speaking about the podium that Leclerc won while going through high fever, Filino said that he knew the young star was strong from the beginning but the podium win came as a surprise. The ART mechanic even revealed that Leclerc himself was shocked after the win but he never gave up.

“He gave 100% until the end. In the end, he drove with the knife in his mouth,” the ART mechanic added.