Lewis Hamilton termed 'calculating' while Max Verstappen called 'aggressive' by 6x race winner

6x race winner Charles Leclerc has used the word 'calculating' to describe Lewis Hamilton while Max Verstappen was termed 'aggressive'. Leclerc will be teamed up with Hamilton in 2025 when the British driver moves from his current team Mercedes to Ferrari.

With Max, Charles has had a relationship since childhood days. The two drivers never saw each other eye-to-eye when they were kids and had a rivalry at the start of F1 as well. For now, the two drivers are not battling with each other for the title and hence the stakes are not high. As a result, the relationship between Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc is very good.

During an interview given to the newspaper La Stampa, the driver was questioned on his thoughts about the two rivals. Talking about Lewis Hamilton, Leclerc said that the Mercedes ace was calculating on the track and had his moves mapped out before anyone knew.

For Max Verstappen, Leclerc said that the driver was aggressive in his approach and tended to what was on offer. Charles said,

“Hamilton and Verstappen are both fast, obviously. For Lewis I would add calculating on the track, I mean. In the way he moves, the way he positions the car when he defends or attacks, you understand all the experience and thought behind it. Max is aggressive. He's more like: if there's space I'll just go there . "

When questioned how he characterizes himself, Leclerc said,

"I'm fast too. And intuitive: in certain moments I drive a lot with intuition, especially in qualifying, it's something that characterizes me."

Max Verstappen's former adversary on Lewis Hamilton's special ability

Max Verstappen's former adversary Esteban Ocon recently touched on Lewis Hamilton's innate ability to switch focus instantly from one thing to another. Ocon was the Mercedes reserve driver in 2019 and during that time he interacted often with the drivers.

In the High Performance Podcast, he revealed that the one thing that stood out was Hamilton's ability to switch from his stuff outside of F1 to the stuff on track. He said,

“Definitely. I remember Lewis coming from different marketing events and all these things in a race weekend – Lewis is a very busy man. Apart from racing, that’s some of the differences compared to some drivers who are more focused onto the racetrack."

He added,

“He’s(Lewis Hamilton) got a very busy life in general and seeing how he switches his focus from one thing to another, for me, that kind of amazed me that he was straight away on point, back with his engineer after something completely different.

Lewis Hamilton on his part hasn't had the best start to the 2024 F1 season and will be hoping to get back in the groove to start challenging George Russell with the team.