The French manager spoke about his first encounter with the Ferrari driver, facilitated by the common friendship with Jules Bianchi.
Young talent from the Ferrari school
Charles Leclerc is undoubtedly one of the reference drivers in today’s Formula 1. The Monegasque is part of that group of young talents born in the late ’90s – particularly between 1997 and 1999 – who currently monopolize much of the starting grid of the Circus. Leclerc grew professionally in the Ferrari Driver Academy, becoming the first FDA driver to race in F1 with the Maranello team. On the managerial side, the native of the Principality has been followed for many years by another name – or rather, surname – linked to Ferrari’s history: Todt. Not Jean, the team principal of the early 2000s triumphs, but his son Nicholas.
In the name of Jules
In an interesting interview given to Radio Deejay, during the program ‘Deejay Chiama Italia’, Todt Jr. – present together with Charles Leclerc himself – recalled the origins of their meeting. The bridge was made by the family of the late Jules Bianchi, recently honored by Leclerc himself at the Japanese GP with a dedicated helmet. It was he who put the young and promising Charles Leclerc in contact with what is now effectively one of the most influential managers within Formula 1.
“My job was mainly to be a talent scout,” Nicholas Todt recounted, “trying to select the best young drivers in the world. At that time, there were 2-3 really strong drivers in karting, like Max [Verstappen] and Charles. Charles and I had a great mutual friend, Jules Bianchi, who unfortunately passed away 10 years ago, and Jules’s best friend was Charles’s brother. The Bianchi family told me about Charles, telling me it was really worth helping him. We met with Charles’s dad when he was 14,” concluded the French manager.
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