7-Year-Old Video Resurfaces Where Charles Leclerc on His F2 Debut Overtook 8 Cars to Win the Race

Charles Leclerc was a Ferrari academy driver and was touted as a prodigy ever since his days in karting. His debut race in the Formula 2 championship at the Bahrain International Circuit in 2017 would go on to just cement that notion. A clip of his monstrous stint en route to winning that race has resurfaced and is going viral on social media.

The video has been doing the rounds of X (formerly Twitter). Leclerc can be seen pitting with eight laps to go. This is unprecedented because the event was a Sprint Race. Despite the same, the Monegasque chose to pit for fresher and softer rubber and embarked on a charge.

Leclerc overtook almost half the F2 field after the pitstop. Overtaking is one of the hardest skills to master in modern open-wheel racing. However, the #16 driver made it look effortlessly easy. Driving for Prema, he would take his first win in the junior series.

Charles Leclerc went on to then dominate the Formula 2 championship that year. He won the title with a whopping margin of 72 points to his closest rival, Artem Markelov. His rookie season in F2 was enough to convince Ferrari to sign him up to drive for their customer team, Alfa Romeo, for 2018 as a full-time Formula 1 driver.

Getting into F1, however, was a bittersweet moment for the young Monegasque. His father, Herve, was battling a prolonged illness and succumbed before he could see his son drive in F1. But right before he passed away, Charles Leclerc had told him a white lie – he had signed his F1 deal.

It would only be a few months later that his lie would turn into reality. Later, Leclerc revealed that though he felt it was wrong to lie to his father, in the end, it all worked out as he now drives for Ferrari (a Leclerc household dream).

Charles Leclerc gets one step closer to fulfilling his father’s Ferrari dream

The Leclerc family has only ever had three dreams – to see Charles Leclerc drive for Ferrari in F1, win at Monaco with Ferrari, and win the F1 world championship with the iconic Italian team. In 2019, one-third of that dream came true as Ferrari signed him up alongside Sebastian Vettel.

Earlier this year, the #16 driver got one step closer to fulfilling the trifecta of dreams his father had seen for him. Starting on pole, Leclerc powered through to take his first home Grand Prix win on the streets of Monte Carlo.

And considering how the SF-24 has been performing this season, Leclerc has a slim chance of fighting for the world title as well. However, for that to happen, the Monegasque will need Ferrari to make decent improvements in the races forward and will require both Red Bull and McLaren to have multiple off days.