Welcome to my Chrimer (Charles Primer), where I will try to go through Charles' racing career year-by-year.
This is Part I: 2014, Formula Renault.
Charles' karting days are over: in 2014, he graduates to single-seaters.
Single-seaters are known to be difficult to master; their aerodynamics, light weights and powerful engines mean they're both incredibly fast and difficult to control. Charles makes the jump to the category with British racing team Fortec Motorsports. His signing gets announced in November 2013 for the upcoming season.
By this point, Charles has been working with manager Nicolas Todt (the son of a hugely influential Ferrari/FIA boss) for a couple years. Racing isn't cheap: Todt is instrumental in financing his move to single-seaters.
This was critical to the viability of Charles' career. In 2021, Toto Wolff estimated that a "good go-karting season costs €250,000, an F4 season €500,000, and an F3 season €1 million" while speaking about the difficulties young drivers aiming for F1 have.
The Leclercs' aren't able to drop that kind of money on racing: Pascale is a hairdresser, and Hervé works in a small plastic company.
In 2021, Lorenzo says (awkwardly translated into English):
“Every year, in karting, we said to ourselves that it was the last season. Charles handled the pressure, knowing that if he didn’t have results, it was over, and that, even if he had results, we weren’t. not sure to continue. Hervé, his father, tried to make it run by all possible means. I was at the national level in karting. Being lucid, I saw that it would be impossible for me to go to F1. So I stopped, because the family bet was to find solutions at all costs for Charles to succeed. Because he, at 11, was already standing out from the crowd, with drivers like Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly."
And from Arthur in the same interview:
"At 14, I played my first full championship. But immediately we had to stop for three years, because for my father it was too expensive to support Charles and me at the same time."
In a 2021 stream, Arthur expands on the difficulties:
"With my father I never traveled once. He didn't have the money for Charles' karting or for me. He did not have the money to go & see Charles in the race, actually. We were staying at home and following Charles in the computer."
(As a note, Charles would work with his uncle once he reached F1 to sponsor Arthur's career.)
In classic Charles fashion, he tried to put a positive spin on it in a 2020 interview:
"I have learned that from my father, who quite often left me alone on the race weekend so that I grew up on my own. I am trying to do the same with Arthur and so far he is doing a great job!"
The extended family dynamics are a little complicated: Pascale actually comes from a very successful Monaco family. Her father, Charles Manni, was the founder of a local company that manufactures car parts. Here is Hervé showing his F3 car to his future father-in-law:
There are a lot of rumors about the family dynamic.
They appear to be very good childhood friends; at some point-- after Pascale divorces Lorenzo's father-- Hervé marries Pascale, adopts Lorenzo, and has Charles (named after his new in-law) and Arthur. That's as gossipy as I'm willing to get, but there appears to be a lot of rumors circulating Monaco message boards about family tension. Either way, the family connection wasn't any help.
Charles' uncle, Thierry Manni, said:
"I often read that Charles comes from a modest family, but that's not true. We were the biggest employer in Monaco, but my father held on to a certain number of values. In the family, we do not write blank checks. He put limits on his participation, Hervé gave what he could and, at one point, we even found ourselves faced with an impasse. This is where Nicolas Todt intervened in 2011 to help us, under the leadership of Jules Bianchi. "
Once Charles' career appears to be in jeopardy, Jules-- Todt's first signed driver-- insists that they meet.
Todt is impressed by the karter, and steps in. Usually, a manager attempts to finance a driver through securing sponsorships; in Charles' case, Todt puts the money up himself.
In 2019, Todt says:
"I signed Charles at 14. He should have stopped karting because he ran out of money. I decided to help him. I introduced him to Ferrari a few years ago and today he drives there. And no one can say that he got there just like that: he's there because we did the job. For me, someone like Charles is my greatest pride, the fact that he went there and delivered."
Todt would later expand on this:
"I love finding future stars and helping them make their dreams come true. I am the only manager who does it that way, that is my specialty. It's easy to say: you have to do this, you have to do that. As long as it's not your own money, you can give advice. You can say 'buy this house'. But do you say: 'Buy this house, we make 50/50?' Then it's a completely different thing. If I believe in someone, then I invest. Of course, I also try to find sponsors who help me. But if I don't find sponsors, I'm the one who has to invest. I did that with Jules [Bianchi], I did it with Charles, and I do it with drivers who I think are special."
With Todt's support, Charles is able to compete in the Formula Renault 2.0 Alps Championship.
It is worth noting, though, that single-seaters weren't the only thing Charles learned to drive in 2014:
Charles starts his season off by picking his number... 17, which was also the number Jules was racing under in F1 at the time:
Charles starts the season strong. Charles manages to set a category track record at preseason testing: Kartcom's article summarizing the day was simply titled "Charles Leclerc leaves everyone in his trail in Barcelona".
Charles is quoted, saying:
"I don’t think the tests could have gone any better. It’s incredible being a rookie and setting the fastest overall time! We still have plenty of work to do, although I have learned a lot. Listening to the engineers is the key to making progress quickly. And although it’s nice to be quickest, it is still only testing. The races themselves will be a different matter."
Jules sends out his well wishes for Charles' first race in Imola:
And Charles returns it:
Charles might be a rookie, but he impresses his team enough to where they run him in another series concurrently.
Formula Scout would summarize the season:
Leclerc entered Formula Renault 2.0 for his rookie single-season season, embarking on the Alps series for Fortec Motorsports. He quickly became a frontrunner, making the podium at round two at Pau and then twice again at Spa. At Monza he won both races, and followed that with more podiums to secure second place in the championship behind third-year FR2.0 racer Nyck de Vries. Some of Leclerc’s most impressive performances last year came in Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 as a guest entry. He took part in six races and finished second in the last three of those, up against lots of drivers with multiple years of experience in the series.
His first win single-seater win is in Monza, where he has a perfect weekend: he also wins that second race.
Of course, in true Charles fashion, he couldn't stop himself from a little self-criticism after the race:
"My start was not perfect and I’ve lost a place. Than I’ve managed to recover it duelling with Isaakyan. When my team told me of the 10” penalty assigned to Riener, I just focused in keeping my pace. This is a very special day as this is my first win ever in singleseaters."
Charles would finish the season with 199 points, 2 wins, 7 podiums and 1 pole position. Formula Scout would summarize his performance:
After several starring years on the world karting scene, Leclerc’s car debut season was a long awaited one and it lived up to expectations. A non-score at the Imola opener aside, Leclerc delivered a superb rookie season, maturing and improving round after round, which culminated in a spectacular double victory at Monza and saw a further five podium appearances throughout the campaign. A protege of Nicolas Todt’s All Road Management firm, he has also been superb in his guest Eurocup outings and the chief 2.0 series appears to be a logical next step – one he’s more than ready for. In fact, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him take a higher jump up the ladder than that.
They were right: Charles would take his old karting rival Max Verstappen's now open F3 seat at Van Amersfoort Racing for the 2015 season.
As a final note, this year was also very tragic: Jules' accident would happen in October, on the same day as Charles' final race in Formula Renault.
I'm not going to go into the details, because it feels like it would be disrespectful: it was a tragedy, and it very clearly deeply affected Charles and his family. Jules was an incredible influence for Charles, both personally and professionally.
Through all of this, however, Charles continues into Formula 3.
But that's for the next chapter.