heatwave | Charles Leclerc | re-writing

Chapter 42

Monaco, May 2023 - Charles Leclerc

Winning at home would be incredible. A fucking dream come true.

When you grow up knowing that you're country, even though it's ridiculously small, supports your crazy dream to be a formula 1 driver is the best feeling in the world. I didn't have much money to go to karting and make it my job. Thankfully, my family has always been close to the Bianchi household, so they deliberately paid for the whole beggining of my career until I had my own cash.

Me and Jules, we've always bonded pretty well. That day, July 17th 2015, a part of me died. As his body went to the grave at his funeral, the joy part of my soul went down with his coffin.

I'm just continuing his legacy. I'm trying to make what Jules couldn't do, and I'm 100% willing to do whatever it takes to make his dream come true.

Monaco is definetely the dream place to win. It's so, SO iconic. The problem of this track is that it is absurdly hard to overtake. With that, having a great quali is the key to win.

Truth is, I'm cursed. If you're a fan of formula one, you definetely know that I have some kind of curse. I call it the Monegasque Curse. It is so known between fans as a meme that one time I was doing the drivers' parade and saw a poster saying: God Save the Prince of Monaco, say no to the Monegasque Curse. I was doing an interview, I read it and started having a laugh attack. I just couldn't stop.

It's so rewarding to see my mom happy after a good race. I'm going to do everything on my power to make her proud this weekend.

The shitty part of this story is that my quali went bad as hell. I've got p7, which is horrible for this track. I'm going to need many prayers, lots of luck and everyone pitting at the same time, so I can lead.

The country gets really busy on the week of the GP. It gets filled with famous people from every corner of the world, natives get really anxious and students even have thursday and friday off to get prepared to the race.

You can't say that you don't get nervous for a race, because there's always some kind of knot on your throat before it's lights out. If you get in F1, you're already proud of it. We're the absolute best in the world. We're only twenty out of thousands of people that dream about this. We feel the pressure to be the best.

Some drivers, even in other motersports, don't know how to cope with the anxiety that it may give you. That's why only the best get to the top.

But, dear readers, diamonds are made under pressure.

I shrug the thoughts out of my head and jump into the car, the Monaco GP almost starting.

The mechanics push the car to the grid, p7 it's where we're starting. For fuck's sake, even Lance Stroll is better than me.

The lights go out and the twenty cars start the formation lap. It's not nice to see a green car in my front and having another one up my ass. I warm up the tires until we get again to the grid. We get once again positioned.

All the red lights light up in sequence and they shut down, meaning that it's officially lights out for Monaco.

The one thing that fucks everything up in Monaco is rain. It was sunny all week, but of course, it's me and I'm cursed. A fucking storm broke down.

- Victoria Marino -

At the exact momemt that I saw that dark cloud at the sky and rain started pouring, I knew Charles was fucked.

Not that I don't believe him and his potential. I do. He's the greatest promise for the future of F1.

But Leclerc plus Ferrari plus Monaco plus rain, all in the same sentence, is something that you just know that isn't good. At all.