10 Things F1 Driver Charles Leclerc Can’t Live Without

GQMagazine

F1 star Charles Leclerc joins GQ Sports to reveal his 10 Essentials. The Monacan racing driver breaks down his daily essentials: from his Eight Sleep system (“I’m a big big sleeper”) to his Padel racket (“Carlos Sainz is probably the best player on the grid”). Watch the full episode of GQ Sports’ 10 Essentials, as Charles Leclerc reveals 10 things he can’t live without.----------Director: Cole EvelevDirector of Photography: Cole EvelevEditor: Phil CeconiTalent: Charles LeclercProducer: Camille RamosLine Producer: Jen SantosProduction Manager: James PipitoneProduction Coordinator: Elizabeth HymesTalent Booker: Paige KefferCamera Operator: Steve VasquezGaffer: David Wells; Egon StephanSound Mixer: Justin HallProduction Assistant: Carmen HartmannPost Production Supervisor: Jess DunnPost Production Coordinator: Stella ShortinoSupervising Editor: Rob LombardiAssistant Editor: Andy Morell

Transcript

00:00Hello everyone, I am Charles Leclerc and these are 10 things I can't live without. Let's go.

00:10My sunglasses, here they are, but I never wear them during interviews. Don't feel it's very

00:24polite to do so. They are cool, they are beautiful, they protect me from the sun. They are not the

00:30meta ones, I do have the meta ones and I actually wear them in some occasions. It's very cool like

00:35when I'm driving, karting, sometimes I wear them and you can shoot at the same time. But for the

00:39everyday use, I go for those ones. I actually should wear prescription glasses, but I don't.

00:45I've got like a perfect view, I just struggle a bit more to see perfectly, so I might have like

00:51headaches at the end of the day. My watch and my jewels. This bracelet is the date of my Monaco

00:59win last year. Very special one. A race that I've always dreamed of winning one day. And along some

01:04other bracelets, sometimes it can be fan bracelet. This one is actually my girlfriend that gifted me

01:10this one. And my watch, for the time. But I actually, I use it more for the style than for the time,

01:16because I always forget to put it at the right hour. I'm always traveling too much. It is a model

01:22that we've actually just released with Richard Mio, which is the Charles Leclerc model. So he's the first

01:28model that has been done for myself. Richard has actually been the very first person that believed

01:33in me and financed my career and helped me to get to where I am today. They are making 150. I do think

01:39they are sold out, yes. That's exactly what Leo does. He's my dog. It's a mini Dachshund long hair,

01:51blonde, beautiful, perfect personality. He's my best friend. I bring him in most of the races,

01:57and that's his toy. He loves it. This noise is his favorite noise in the world. He gets very excited.

02:04Last year he did get a paddock pass, but he doesn't need it anymore. People know him

02:08actually more than me. So he's fine without pass. He can still get into the paddock at every races

02:14he comes to. He's the best. My next essential is my paddle racket. I'm a very, very competitive

02:21person. So whenever I'm not on track, I need to find some kind of competitiveness. Paddle is

02:26probably one of the few sports I'm good at. I'm not very good apart from actually racing cars,

02:31but paddle I'm acceptable. So I always bring my racket around to play around the world. Whenever we are on

02:37races, outside the car, you cannot do high intensity trainings. And paddle is actually a really good

02:44sport because it's not so intense. And also for coordination, reflexes, I wouldn't say I play paddle

02:50for those things. I play paddle mostly because it's fun and because I enjoy it. Best paddle player on the

02:55grid? I rate myself amongst the best. I do believe that Carlos Sainz is probably the best, me second best,

03:05and the rest behind. Checo wouldn't beat me. But I like confidence and I like competition. So

03:12Checo, if you see that, we can play whenever you want. My ice cream. I love ice cream. I've always

03:18loved ice cream. Being an athlete and weight is important in a racing car. You've got to be as light

03:24as possible. And for that, obviously lots of sport, but not only the diet is an important part of it. So

03:30I decided to create my own brand of ice cream called LEC, now available in France, Italy and UK,

03:38with reduced calories, which was very important for me, but still tasting exactly like I wanted.

03:43When you think about ice cream, and I've always loved ice cream, that always came with that feeling

03:49guilty because you don't actually want to eat that ice cream if you're on a diet. And I didn't like that

03:55particular filling. And so I was like, okay, I need to try and do a product where I don't have this kind

04:00of filling whenever I eat it. Now I can eat ice cream a lot more often.

04:08My next essential is a keyboard. To be completely honest, this is not the exact piano I'm bringing

04:14around because this has actually very small keys. So it's a bit more difficult to play.

04:20Anyway, I'm not going to do a concert right now. My life is about speed, obviously most of the time,

04:31and music is a way for me to just disconnect from that, slow down, focus on one thing only,

04:36which is the music. I started to play piano during COVID. I started to put stories on Instagram of

04:43musics I will come up with. People liked it. And then I thought it would be cool to post it,

04:48to put them on Spotify. It had some good success. The tricky thing with music is that obviously

04:53there's the technical aspect also attached to it. On the technical side, I've got quite a bit of

05:00limits. So most of the time I'm very, very creative, but then I cannot actually reproduce exactly what

05:05I have in mind just because I'm not as good as I would want to on the piano. But it's a process that

05:11I really, really enjoy, which is the most important thing to me.

05:19My next essential is this beauty. I'm a big, big sleeper. I think I broke my record two weeks ago.

05:27I was in Japan and I slept for 12 hours and 15 minutes straight in one night, probably too much,

05:35but most of the time eight, nine hours, which is quite a lot. This is a sleep. This is something

05:43that I bring everywhere as a Formula One driver. Races are tiring. Recovery is basically everything.

05:49And sleep is obviously the base of recovery. It's basically a sheet that you put on the bed that

05:55gives you all the data while you are sleeping without wearing anything. And second, it cools the bed down.

06:03I think probably the thing that is most useful for me, my girlfriend always wants to be as warm as

06:09possible in the bed. I always want to be as cold as possible in the bed and you can split both sides.

06:15And this is the game changer. Before, I remember I used to always try and find for the fresh side of bed.

06:23So I was moving all the time before falling asleep. Now that's not anymore the case. I can just sleep,

06:28stay in the same position, fresh, all night, beautiful.

06:32Headphones. Music is a very important part of my life. So are my headphones. To have this

06:39noise-canceling headphones, the music is something that I really enjoy. It just helps me to disconnect

06:45a little bit with the outside world and just think. That's probably the best thing I like to do on a plane.

06:50Just think about either the last race, the next race, the different projects that I have in mind.

06:56Where is the love from the Black Eyed Peas is probably the song I listen most to,

07:03or the song I have listened most to in my whole life. It's linked to particular moments of my childhood,

07:09which always remind me of those kind of moments. And I really enjoy this song.

07:13I absolutely love the songs that I've done with Sofiane Pomart, who is a good friend of mine and an

07:18incredible pianist. And that was probably one of the only times where my creativity had no limits,

07:23because Sofiane was here to actually help me technically play the song himself, what I had in

07:28mind. I'm very curious in everything I do, but in music as well. And also, even when I don't

07:34actually enjoy a song, I like to try and push through it and understand it. At one point, I like it.

07:41Sometimes I was surprised. My phone. My dog is my background. He's so beautiful. I love what I do,

07:52and I'm so lucky to be doing what I've always dreamed of doing, which is to be a Formula 1 driver,

07:56and especially with Ferrari. However, obviously my family, my girlfriend, my friends are most of the

08:02time at home when they cannot come on a race. So obviously the phone is the only way to contact them.

08:10I do have my own social media. I try to limit the time I spend on it. So I've got like the limit per

08:16day, which I think is set on 20 minutes, 25 minutes per day. But I do manage them myself,

08:23with the team around me. Actually Antoine is just there taking all the content that you see.

08:29Books. This one is the one I'm reading at the moment. I haven't done Harvard Business School,

08:34but I'm still reading that anyway. I love reading books in general, instead of spending a lot of

08:41time on my phone. I just prefer to learn new things and read as much as I can.

08:46Thanks for watching. These were my essentials and I hope to see you very soon. Ciao!

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