Charles Leclerc finds his name amongst Jannik Sinner in bizarre leak linked to China

Charles Leclerc found himself in a bizarre brainwave data leak carried out to help supersoldier research in China. According to a report by Hunterbrook/Pablo Torre, there are allegations that China-backed entities have accessed the athletes' data through the FocusCalm device used in training.

As per reports, Chinese-linked entities were allegedly involved in stealing brainwave data from athletes such as Leclerc, Tennis player Jannik Sinner, and Iga Swiatek, skier Mikaela Shiffrin, touring car racer Nestor Girolami, NFL star Logan Ryan, and multiple English Premier League soccer players, among many others.

The report further states that the parent company of FocusCalm, BrainCo, received its funding from the Chinese Communist Party. They have allegedly shared the data to the Chinese military for their military research and for their supersoldier projects.

Sam Koppelman of Hunterbrook, the firm that paired with Pablo Torre for the investigation, spoke about this. Speaking about this, here's what he said:

"In recent years, BrainCo has largely shut down its US operation. Moved to China where it's now going public at that $1.3billion valuation, and it has quietly become one of the most important companies in the world to the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party."

A futurist and legal ethicist from Duke Law School, Nita Farahany, also shared her thoughts on this:

"It's probably useful to look at the broader context of a lot of information that's come out about China's investments in brain-computer interface more recently, which then makes you think 'okay well why is China investing so significantly into brain-computer interface devices?' Clearly it has some military component to it, some dual use component to it." (Via Motorsport.com)

FocusCalm is a renowned headband that helps high-performance athletes track their brainwaves for performance reasons. They can see when they are stressed and when they are relaxed and work on the data accordingly.

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Charles Leclerc addressed his qualifying success ahead of the Azerbaijan GP qualifying

Charles Leclerc touched upon his qualifying success at the Baku City Circuit in recent times, where he claimed back-to-back pole positions from 2021 to 2024. Leclerc's dominance came amid Max Verstappen's stellar run with the mighty Red Bulls in the last four years.

Charles Leclerc of Monaco driving the (16) Scuderia Ferrari SF-25 - Source: Getty

“It comes naturally. I feel I am quite strong normally on city tracks and here, maybe there is something else as well that makes it particularly strong for me. It’s a good feeling to come back here. I know normally that I am strong here," Leclerc said about his qualifying success.

Currently, Charles Leclerc is in P5 in the Drivers' Championship with 163 points after 16 races and three Sprints. His teammate, Lewis Hamilton is in P6 with 117 points after the same number of races. Ferrari are in P2 in the Constructors' Championship with 280 points.

Edited by Sabyasachi Biswas