Mr. Wapojif

F1 Driver Pianists: Behold Motorsport’s Finest Piano Players

F1's best driver pianists

Believe it or not, from the noisy world of motorsport there have been a batch of F1 drivers highly skilled at playing the piano.

Well, why not? These guys are very talented, exceptional with coordination and focus, plus they need some way to relax amongst all the death-defying stuff. Let’s have a gander at the very best ivory tinkerers from Formula 1’s illustrious history.

F1’s Very Best Concert Level (or close enough) Driver Pianists

Starting off with this generation of drivers, we’ll then work back to the 1970s and the multi-talented drivers with a considerable side hustle.

Charles Leclerc’s Piano Exploits

The 25 year old Leclerc is one of the most likeable drivers on the grid.

His self-deprecating, honest, and level-headed presence ensured he rose the ranks to be Ferrari’s lead driver as early as 2019 (helped along by how bloody fast he is).

He’s also a composer and musician whose work featured on Classic FM just last week. Behold!

The Monégasque driver taught himself piano during the various pandemic lockdowns. Leclerc stresses he composes and plays to wind down after all his ultra-demanding PR and training commitments in F1.

You can read Classic FM’s piece in Star Formula 1 driver Charles Leclerc taught himself piano:

“It is quite remarkable that the driver has only been playing the piano and making music for three years. His compositions are striking for their lyricism and the way he uses harmonic tension to gently shape the music.”

Below is the piece played on Classic FM, which we’ve got to say is bloody good indeed for someone who’s only been doing this for three years.

As you can hear, he’s really putting maximum effort into it with backing instruments and the like.

There’s another likely source for this creative output. Leclerc’s father died in 2017 and his close friend Jules Bianchi in 2015. He was so close with the latter Bianchi was his godfather.

With such personal losses people often turn to creativity and music to help deal with grief. We do think this will be one reason why Leclerc is doing this.

But add in how he’s fluent in three languages (French, Italian, and English—he’s also learning Spanish) at 25 and you realise how talented some of these drivers are.

Lewis Hamilton and His Ivory Tinkling

Despite a misguided foray into rap music a decade ago, Hamilton has since focussed his attentions on learning acoustic guitar.

And playing the piano!

Hamilton has been open about his learning process online, showing his legion of fans (many of them young people, of course) how perseverance pays off.

Recently he was picked up by Queen doing a bit of Bohemian Rhapsody, which is pretty cool and whatnot. Nice to get your efforts recognised, eh?

His practising has also been used for amusement purposes. His dog Roscoe has taken a dislike/like (whatever this response is) to the music.

The driver is largely committed to his acoustic guitar work, but full marks for putting the effort in to learn.

Adrian Sutil’s Hidden Talent

Adrian Sutil raced in F1 between 2007-2014. During that time it was rumoured he was an excellent pianist.

The only clip we could find of him playing properly is with the boogie-woogie (see Behind the Candelabra) above.

That clip doesn’t really demonstrate his ability, as a lot of people attest he’s a talented musician. But he doesn’t seem to promote any of his work online so there we go.

Elio de Angelis as the Concert Level Pianist

Unfortunately, Elio de Angelis died in a testing accident on 15th May 1986. He was 28. This loss denied F1 a charming and handsome presence around the paddock.

There isn’t much footage of his playing, which is a shame. He was a concert-standard pianist with a wide skill set.

At the 1982 South African Grand Prix there was a drivers’ strike about some new regulation the sport’s governing body introduced. The drivers all locked themselves into a hotel in Johannesburg as they awaited the outcome.

For entertainment purposes de Angelis put on a free concert with various works from Chopin and Mozart.

The piano was a huge passion of his, rather than a casual hobby, and he intended for his post-F1 career to focus on his work as a pianist.

François Cevert as the Concert Level Pianist

Now that definitely is dashing F1 ace François Cevert performing Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8. It featured in an F1 film with the driver present—plus, he was a noted pianist around the F1 paddock.

As his close friend and mentor Sir Jackie Stewart (see the 2023 Stewart documentary) has noted on many occasions, Cevert was a great pianist.

He was, in fact, classically trained and held a particular love for Beethoven.

Still don’t believe us? Well, here’s a picture of him playing the piano (you may also notice just how good looking the guy was).

Francois Cevert playing the piano

Unfortunately, there’s very little footage of Cevert playing piano.

And, tragically, the notorious fatal accident at Watkins Glen in October 1973 robbed the sport of what could have been its next big name driver.

With Cevert, we like to remember his exploits as the charismatic young guy he was back in the early ’70s.

So we’ll end on this story from 2018. This is Sir Jackie Stewart reminiscing about his friend in an article on the official F1 site:

Jackie and Helen Stewart invited Cevert to join them on holiday. Staying in a Bermudan hotel patronised by a decidedly geriatric set – “we were the only young people there,” remembers Stewart. Cevert set about winning over the elderly clientele with his remarkable musical talent.

“There was a cover over the grand piano. He took the cover off and then sat down and played. He was a very good classical pianist and he played Beethoven’s Pathetique. And I’ll tell you what, these people were just out of this world because none of them were getting much out of the night! And suddenly, every single night, he would get up and play the piano. The grannies were all over the place!”

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