Charles Leclerc was born on 16 October 1997 in Monte Carlo, Monaco, as the son of Hervé Leclerc. Leclerc senior drove in the eighties and nineties in Formula 3 and was a successful kart driver. Sadly, his father died at the age of 54 just before his son's Formula 2 race at Baku.
Leclerc started his career in karts in 2005. He won the French PACA Championship in 2005, 2006 and 2008. After this, he was taking under the wing of Nicolas Todt, who became his manager. In 2012 he won the WSK Euro Series for ART Grand Prix. He finished second in the CIK-FIA European KF2 Championship and became an under 18 world champion. During his last year in karts, he came second in the CIK-FIA World KZ Championship behind Max Verstappen.
In 2014 he drove his first car race for Fortec Motorsport in the Formula Renault 2.0 Alps championship. In his first season, he was second behind Nyck de Vries. Then in 2015, he switched to Van Amersfoort Racing in Formula 3. At the beginning of the season, he was the leader in the championship, but had to settle for a fourth place in the end. He finished second at Macau during the Macau Grand Prix.
Leclerc then won the titles in the GP3 Championship (2016) and the Formula 2 Championship (2017). In the meantime, he had joined the Ferrari Acadamy and got a seat at Sauber for 2018. In his first Formula 1 season, he managed to get the ailing Swiss stable out of the doldrums and he scored 39 points, which was good enough for thirteenth in the world championship.
In just his second year in Formula 1, Leclerc received a promotion to Ferrari, replacing 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen and partnering up with Sebastian Vettel.