Charles Leclerc on Michael Schumacher's Ferrari decade, ahead of Monza

Charles Leclerc marked the run-up to the 2026 Italian Grand Prix by talking about Michael Schumacher, the driver whose decade at Ferrari he grew up trying to follow. Leclerc spoke in Milan at the launch of the Puma for Scuderia Ferrari HP Monza collection, a limited-edition capsule built around Schumacher's era, unveiled at an event hosted by the retailer End.

The timing is deliberate. Schumacher joined Ferrari and won at Monza in 1996, exactly 30 years before this year's race, and scored his final win with the team at the 2006 Chinese Grand Prix. Earlier the same day, Scuderia Ferrari unveiled a one-off livery for its home race and bespoke race suits for Leclerc and teammate Lewis Hamilton, tributes to the seven-time champion.

Schumacher's title run at Ferrari peaked between 2000 and 2004, when he won five consecutive Drivers' Championships, the last in the V10-powered F2004. Ferrari has grown well beyond that era: it is now a publicly traded company, Ferrari N.V., reporting $4.24 billion in revenue, with a road car range running from the $226,570 Roma to the $2.2 million Daytona SP3.

"I see him as inspiration, he is an icon of Ferrari, of Formula 1, of sports and even beyond that he's the expression of talent, but backed by such incredible hard work," Leclerc said of Schumacher. "I obviously grew up dreaming of following in the footsteps of Michael."

"That comparison also comes with responsibility," he added, "but it's a team I love so much that I don't feel the pressure too much."

Schumacher won the Italian Grand Prix five times for Ferrari, a record that still shapes what Monza's tifosi, the Italian word for fans, expect from the team. Leclerc has two Monza wins of his own, in 2019 and 2024, and currently ranks fifth in the World Drivers' Championship, two places behind Hamilton.

What Leclerc says the team is chasing

Leclerc framed the Schumacher decade as the benchmark Ferrari is still working toward. "It's an era that we want to reproduce and come back to," he said. "That's what we are working day and night to try and get close to what the team had managed to do with Michael back then. So this is our only priority."

Leclerc's remarks came the same week Ferrari unveiled the Monza tribute suits. They follow other recent crossovers between the sport and collector culture, including Lewis Hamilton buying the Ferrari F40 he has chased for years.

A Ferrari 550 once owned by Michael Jordan, the car that inspired the Air Jordan XIV, is separately heading to auction for up to $1.3 million. It is a reminder of how much a Ferrari with the right provenance can command: we rank the 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO, sold privately for $70 million, among the most expensive Ferraris ever sold.

Why Monza is personal for Leclerc

Leclerc has never known life without racing: he competed in his first race at age three and a half. "I kind of grew up in Italy because all the carting races back when I was a kid were held in Italy, so I grew up with the Italian people and the Italian culture around me, and that's a country where I feel home," he said.

He described watching Ferrari drivers as a child and now seeing children watch him the same way. "I also grew up being a tifoso myself, and to now being the Ferrari driver and having all the tifosi cheering for us being in the car is a very special experience," he said.

The Puma capsule draws directly on Schumacher's wardrobe from the period. It includes a red racing jacket modeled on his race suit, with white contrast stitching and the Scuderia Ferrari logo running across each shoulder.

It also carries a Replica T-shirt and shirt printed with seven stars for his championship wins, Speedcat and Speedcat Pro sneakers, and a laurel-wreath hat. Leclerc singled out the jacket and hat as his favorites, calling the denim a throwback to "that particular vibe" of the 2000s: "the jeans, the jackets, there was just something very special," he said.

Leclerc, who is also a Puma and L'Oreal Paris ambassador, runs his own creative studio, Side Quest, and a clothing label, CL16. He worked with Ferrari's creative director, Rocco Iannone, on a codesigned capsule last year.

He said he hopes his own Ferrari tenure is remembered less for statistics than for how he approached it. "I think it's all down to passion, respect, being respectful, and being kind," he said. "These are probably the three values that are most important to me, and that I hope to be remembered for, on top of, I hope, many world championships."

Leclerc's next race after Monza is the Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid, scheduled for September 11 to 13.