Hiii!! Sorry to disturb you, I'm kinda new to the fandom and i was wondering what was the joke that charles pulled on the Ferrari team and how they broke the news of his 5yr contract to him? And what is the "car he won in" thing included in the contract? Sorry to be bothersome ksjsjsn
I need cute Ferrari and Charles story to somehow mend my broken heart after the mess of the last few races, i love anecdotes about how much his team loves him and is wrapped around his fingers
helllooooo, it's no trouble at all! I love talking about charles and ferrari :') so here we go!
The prank Charles pulled on the Ferrari team was at the last 3 corners to him winning Bahrain 2022. For context, 3 years ago, Charles was leading the race in Bahrain by around 10 seconds, in his second race ever with Ferrari. It was brilliant to watch. It felt like he was really going to win his first race in just his second race ever in a competitive car. (Previously, he had just one year at Sauber, which finished P8 in the standings.) But then. "There's something strange with the engine, something strange with the engine!" Lewis passed him. Then Valtteri. He managed to keep a P3 thanks to a safety car, but his very first podium in F1 had been a disappointment because were it not for the engine problem, he really should have had his maiden win then. It wouldn’t be until Spa 2019 where he would win his first F1 grand prix.
Flashforward to 2022. First race of the season. Ferrari had been P3 last year. They looked quite strong in testing but you never really know until you get the cars on track. Charles is on pole. He drives beautifully, outsmarts Max Verstappen after a close pit stop then holds him off with a perfect restart. We’re at the final lap. Three corners to the end. Then you hear on Charles’ radio: “There’s something strange with the engine, something strange with the engine!” Brief pause. Engineers checking their date. Mechanics suffering a mini heart attack in the garage. Tentatively, Xavi, his race engineers, laughs, nervously, “Copy.” Pause. “I’m joking.” You can hear his smile. “Understood.” He reaches the finish line. “And P1!!”
Charles says he’d actually been planning this prank for about 10-15 laps, the madman, hoping there wouldn’t be reliability issues. (Possibly through that nervy safety car restart even.) He said he was already imaging the face of an engineer Torre in the garage, “povero gabbiano hai perduto la compagna.” [reference to an italian meme, “poor seagull who lost his mate!”] This is an inside joke between Charles and the Ferrari garage, who had played the song in the garage and dared him to say it on the radio, if he won. Mattia says to him on the radio, “Never do that again, eh?” Charles responds that no, of course not, it was only appropriate in this situation.
Charles pulls up to the pit lane. P1. He embraces his team, they are rejoicing, this feels like redemption and a rebirth. “Sei uno stronzo! Sei uno stronzo!” his mechanics/engineers say as they hug him. Yeah, because he is an asshole for making them a heart attack for a few seconds like that!
The story of Charles being notified that he got the Ferrari seat for 2019 is also such a great one because, like Charles’ Bahrain 2022 joke, it really is representative of Ferrari humor. (Basically, Person A will go like [smth completely untrue/opposite of what they want to say,] Person B will be like oh..., and then Person A is like :3 jk, actually-)
I’m not sure if this call takes place during the summer or during the season, but it should before Kimi announced at the Italian Grand Prix that he was going to Sauber/Alfa Romeo next year. Charles, at that point, was in his first year with Sauber. He’d been doing a brilliant job with a car that wasn’t that great, getting it into Q3s and scoring good points too. It was a big debate among tifosi whether or not Charles should be called up or not. Most wanted Kimi to stay. He was massively popular, his form was seeing an uptick in the latter half of the season, he was a very steady and solid partner to Seb who was leading the championship fights for Ferrari. Charles, just 20 at the time, was an unknown.
It hadn’t been in Ferrari’s nature to promote drivers young for some years. Massa had spent 3-4 years at Sauber before stepping up to Ferrari in 2006. The Ferrari Drivers Academy had only been established in December 2009, Jules Bianchi was the first member. He was still part of Ferrari’s program when he made it to F1, driving at backmarker team Marussia F1 in 2013 and 2014 until his fatal accident at the Japanese Grand Prix. Jules probably would have made the step up to the midfield Sauber in 2015 first, to prove himself more, before he could step up into Ferrari, a future that had seemed certain to so many around the paddock until his accident.
But then, a few years on you had Charles, who was immediately fast in a car and learned even faster. He won GP3 and F2 back to back in his rookie seasons. Since 2017, there’s been quite some hype surrounding him as a Ferrari junior who was dominating the F2 season, even more so for his incredible show of maturity and determination to race and win on the very week his father died. That weekend had impressed then Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene.
And so, in 2018, some time during summer break or before the Italian Grand Prix, Charles receives a phone call from Maurizio. Maurizio says, “Okay, we’ve made our decision, you are not taken for 2019.” Charles was, of course, disappointed. But it is an understandable decision to renew Kimi Raikkonen, the last Ferrari champion, you know? He will get his chance eventually. 15 seconds pass. “No, I’m joking,” Maurizio says.
On September 11, there is the official announcement: Charles Leclerc will drive for Scuderia Ferrari in 2019.
Charles won Spa and Monza back to back in 2019, his first and second win consecutively. The first Ferrari win at Monza since Fernando Alonso in 2010. He’d sustained consistent pressure from Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas throughout the whole race, and he won. As soon as he won Monza, this 21-year-old kid said to Ferrari, “...You know, I would love this car at home.” And they were like, “Oh, we’ll see, we’ll see.”
The end of the year rolls around. Charles is renewing his contract with Ferrari. In the process of re-negotiating his contract, he brings up the point about the car that won in Spa and won in Monza, and Ferrari accepts. Charles renews his contract with Ferrari by 5 years, the longest contract length in Scuderia Ferrari history, a courtesy not even Michael Schumacher received. That 5-year contract just shows you the regard Charles and Ferrari has for each other.
So, in 2021, ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Charles teases that he has received a very special gift from Ferrari. It is that SF90 car, with the same exact chassis that he won his first two grand prix with back in 2019.
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