When I first learned that famous F1 driver and professional model Charles Leclerc also had a music career, I was somewhat shocked. When I learned that seven-time world champion and soon-to-be Leclerc’s teammate (#justiceforcarlos), Lewis Hamilton, also had a music career, I was much less surprised (Hamilton is so cool, if you told me he was also a famous painter I would probably believe you). However, in both cases, I was hesitant to actually listen to their music; I worried that it would be so bad that I would become biased against two of my favorite drivers.
Fortunately, listening to Leclerc’s Spotify in preparation for this article, I was pleasantly surprised. He’s not a hardcore, French rapper as I had halfway assumed he would be. Instead, Charles Leclerc produces simple but beautiful piano tracks, named affectionately after the race tracks where he wrote them. The “AUS23,” standing for Australia 2023, and the track is actually quite beautiful—I can see how writing piano music could be a much-needed stress reliever after a high-intensity race.
Lewis Hamilton, I’m embarrassed to say, does not produce a similarly peaceful type of music. In fact, he hardly has a musical career at all as far as I can tell. It seems fans have simply gone hog-wild over his feature on “Pipe,” a Christiana Aguilera track from her eighth album, Liberation. Honestly, the lyrics are so raunchy that I can’t even include them here, but feel free to check out the song on Spotify. Hamilton comes in at “You know I got a wild imagination…” While he has a nice voice, Hamilton’s anonymous feature as XNDA on the song is a little silly. The man is a seven- (although it should be eight-) time world champion—he deserves his own song at the very least.
Since I actually made it through (and genuinely enjoyed) all of Leclerc’s half-hour worth of music, but couldn’t even make it through Hamilton’s 30-second feature, I have to pronounce Charles the (far) superior musician. If you’ve ever been curious about Leclerc’s music career, I’d tell you to take a listen! You’ll be pleasantly surprised. However, if you feel curious about Lewis’s music, you’re better off just keeping it to yourself—you won’t be able to look at the man the same after.