{"id":714921,"date":"2026-06-04T17:05:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T17:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/714921\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T17:05:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T17:05:14","slug":"leclerc-turned-down-rival-bids-to-stay-with-ferrari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/714921\/","title":{"rendered":"Leclerc turned down rival bids to stay with Ferrari"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MONACO (AP) \u2014 Charles Leclerc said he turned down offers from other Formula 1 teams before signing a new <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/leclerc-ferrari-contract-abedbb05b7dfe8d94576063024bc1de9\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">multi-year deal<\/a> with Ferrari, insisting it would mean more to win his first drivers&#8217; title with the Scuderia than anyone else.<\/p>\n<p>The fresh deal &#8211; announced ahead of his home Monaco Grand Prix taking place this weekend &#8211; extended the 28-year-old Leclerc&#8217;s association with the storied team that began a decade ago, initially in its academy.<\/p>\n<p>Leclerc has yet to become champion after seven full seasons as an F1 driver so changing teams was an option in a bid to fulfill his dream, he told a news conference on Thursday \u2014 without saying who came in for him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere were, yes,\u201d he said of rival bids that were on the table. \u201cI\u2019m not going to say who &#8211; they can say it if they want. For me, Ferrari was always the choice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asked if he was given assurances by Ferrari about its future competitiveness, Leclerc said it was \u201cpart of all the discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut winning in red for me has got a very unique feeling,\u201d Leclerc added, &#8220;and something that I\u2019ve dedicated all the years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe didn\u2019t manage to achieve that yet, at least in a full season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mercedes has dominated the start of the F1 season, winning the first five races \u2014 the last four victories going to Kimi Antonelli.<\/p>\n<p>But Leclerc, who is third in the drivers&#8217; standings, believes that could change around the iconic twisty circuit in Monaco.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI mean, if there\u2019s one track I will bet on on us, it\u2019s probably Monaco,\u201d said Leclerc, who won F1&#8217;s most famous race in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, I still believe that Mercedes have had a significant advantage since the beginning of the year. So I think they would be very, very strong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP auto racing: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONACO (AP) \u2014 Charles Leclerc said he turned down offers from other Formula 1 teams before signing a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-714921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}