‘It was very special’ – Leclerc recalls childhood meeting with his Ferrari hero Schumacher

Meeting legends, people you have looked up to, in real life can go one of two ways. They’re not anything like you expected and you’re left disappointed, or they meet your expectations. It was certainly the latter when Leclerc met seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher…

During a break in kart testing in the mid-2000s, at Circuit Paul Ricard, Leclerc and some of his competitors were invited to pop into the adjacent F1 track to meet Schumacher while he was testing at the French venue with Ferrari.

Leclerc tweeted a picture of the meeting last week, showing the German signing their overalls, saying: “I never thought I would be driving for the same team he was driving for back then.”

During an interview with Formula1.com, Leclerc recalls being in awe of meeting F1’s most successful racing driver and was immensely grateful he found time to chat to them.

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“I was very, very impressed, that is the biggest thing I remember,” he says. “To tell you exactly what we spoke about is difficult because the only thing I remember is looking at his red overalls, looking at him, and being just as a normal child would be, watching Michael at that time.

“It was very special. I remember coming into the paddock, we had an opportunity to see him. It was all very exciting. It was a test day for us on the karting track. I asked him to sign my overall. Then he had to go to the engineers.

“He was very nice, we were lucky in the paddock, nobody there. He took a bit of time to talk to us. It was really nice.”

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