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The 2026 F1 season could be the year in which Charles Leclerc secures his first world championship in F1 despite Ferrari’s gap to Mercedes in the standings, according to Maranello insider Marc Gene.
While Mercedes are currently in charge of both championships through Kimi Antonelli and George Russell’s hot start in the first three rounds of the year, Ferrari’s 2026 package can’t be dismissed entirely.
The Scuderia currently look like the second-best team on the grid at the moment, and engineers at Maranello have continued development of the SF-26 during F1’s break to ensure Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton have some new tools at their disposal in Miami.
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Leclerc, in particular, has seemingly picked up where he left off as Ferrari’s lead driver last year, securing two podium finishes this season as Mercedes dominate the top step.
The Monegasque is still on the hunt for his maiden world title in the sport, and his current standing of P3 in the drivers’ championship means that the door remains wide open for him in 2026.
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Marc Gene says 2026 could be Charles Leclerc’s ‘year’ in F1
During a recent interview with Sport, former F1 driver and Ferrari brand ambassador Marc Gene was asked for his thoughts on Leclerc being the man to bring the first drivers’ title back to Maranello since Kimi Raikkonen’s feat in 2007.
The Spaniard is very optimistic, going as far as saying that the current campaign could, in fact, be the year that he does it.
“Charles is, as the young people say, in his ‘prime’,” Gene told the Spanish outlet. “He’s at the top of his game. He’s doing everything right. He’s undoubtedly a potential champion.
“We need to give him the car to make it happen. But last year he achieved some very impressive results, considering the car we had. And this year, for example, in the last race, battling Russell as he did and finishing on the podium shows he’s in very good form.”
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Despite Antonelli currently enjoying a 23-point advantage over the Ferrari star, Gene closed out his words by declaring, “Yes, this could be Leclerc’s year.”
In a poll run by F1 Oversteer towards the latter stages of the 2025 campaign, an overwhelming majority of fans expressed their opinion that Ferrari will never win a world championship with Leclerc and Hamilton as their line-up.
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Marc Gene thinks Kimi Antonelli and Oscar Piastri could scupper Charles Leclerc’s title hopes
Gene was also asked for his thoughts on who the title protagonists may be once the 2026 season closes in on the final few rounds. After Oscar Piastri secured McLaren’s first podium of the season last time out in Suzuka, the Spaniard now refuses to rule them out.
He said, “Having watched the latest race at Suzuka, I reckon McLaren are in the mix too, because they’ve improved massively and they were unbeatable last year.
“In such a tight battle, with Mercedes the favourites and hopefully Ferrari too, it would be great to see a six-driver battle right until the end of the season, involving drivers from all three teams.
“Kimi Antonelli has been something of a surprise, Lewis is in the mix, and then we have Oscar Piastri, who has surely matured a lot after missing out on the World Championship last year…
“In other words, if the cars are very evenly matched, as it looks they will be, I can see a wide-open battle between six drivers for the World Championship.”
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