The Lewis Hamilton-Charles Leclerc pairing, although yet to do wonders on the track, seems to be vibing well off it. Even before the season kicked off, many expected the Ferrari duo to develop a camaraderie over many of their common interests, including music, adventure sports, and chess.
It was a game of chess which recently brought the two together—or rather, drove them apart.
The innate competitive spirit in both Leclerc and Hamilton made them resort to certain extreme measures on the flight to Bahrain ahead of this weekend’s Grand Prix. Both were using ‘programs’ (software used to cheat in an online game) to get the better of one another. Since it was presumably just a friendly way to pass the time, neither minded.
That said, there was also a competition between the kind of program the two Ferrari drivers were using. Sadly for Leclerc, this is where he fell short.
“The worst thing is that the program I was using was worse than his. So I was cheating and I still lost,” the Monegasque driver said. “I went to sleep so depressed.”
Hamilton, of course, found this amusing. He laughed about it ‘the whole flight’, and revealed, “I was in tears. We both started cheating at the same moment.”
But even in the spirit of cheating, Hamilton took it a step too far. Both of them knew that something was off. But when Leclerc asked the seven-time world champion whether he was cheating, he refused to cough up. He simply saw his teammate struggling, and tried to make the most of it.
“And I lied initially when he said ‘are we’re both cheating?’ I said ‘what do you mean?'”
Lewis and Charles talking about both of them cheating in chess
Charles: “The worst thing is that the program I was using was worse than his. So I was cheating and I still lost. I went to sleep so depressed.”
Lewis: “I was laughing so hard on this flight, I was in tears. We… pic.twitter.com/S8k6NOmq2A
— sin ⁴⁴ (@44britcedes) April 12, 2025
Cruel, but not surprising. After all, it’s a common cliche in the world of F1 that drivers play to win, whether it is inside the race car, or out of it.
Ironically, breaking the rules did land both Leclerc and Hamilton in trouble once this season. Although it wasn’t their fault, the SF-25, after the Chinese GP, was found to have irregularities. Leclerc’s car was a kilo underweight, whereas Hamilton’s skid-plank was too worn out. As a result, the FIA stewards disqualified the duo from the race, leaving them with zero points on the day in Shanghai.
Using unfair tactics to win chess games might be all in good fun, but everyone at the Maranello-based outfit will be treading carefully around this topic as they look to avoid a repeat of the situation in China later this season.
