F1 fans blown away by Lewis Hamilton act while chasing Lando Norris in Singapore

18 September 2023 , 12:55

381     0

Lewis Hamilton finished on the podium in Singapore (Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Formula 1 fans were left impressed by Lewis Hamilton after footage emerged of him appearing to scratch his nose at high speed during the Singapore Grand Prix.

Hamilton finished the race in third place, inheriting that podium spot after George Russell crashed on the final lap. But it was earlier in the race that the moment that was later shared on social media occurred.

On lap 15, Hamilton was fifth and chasing down Lando Norris ahead of him. When doing so on a track as demanding as the tight Marina Bay street circuit, drivers need all their concentration to make overtakes and avoid crashing in the process.

Hamilton is used to this track, though, having raced there since it was first introduced to F1 in 2008. And he showed it by how casual the Mercedes driver was while tearing after the McLaren at high speed.

Footage from the camera embedded into his helmet showed him lifting up the visor of his helmet to make an adjustment while chasing after Norris. He then puts it back down in time to take a fast-approaching corner and carries on as usual.

Sebastian Vettel warns of looming F1 ban and is "very worried about the future"

Fans on social media were impressed with how Hamilton could multi-task as he did while driving at speed on such an intense circuit. "He drove well even when he was scratching his nose," wrote one, in reply to the video clip.

Another said: "Legendary something to scratch your nose while wrestling your engine and slipstreaming through the tight street track of Singapore." And a third added: "I swear Lewis Hamilton just holds back because he can sometimes."

Hamilton finished third after his Mercedes team gambled on a late change of tyres to try to chase down the leaders. It might have worked if the race was a few laps longer, but in the end, he and Russell ran out of time to catch Norris and race-winner Carlos Sainz, who were working together to keep the Mercedes cars at bay.

The seven-time world champion said: "We needed to take the risk to have a shot at trying to get past some of these guys and going for the win, I think we had a really good pace. I think the team did a great job. George was in second at the time and, maybe, if I was in this position I probably would have stayed out and at least kept McLaren behind.

"We gave it a shot and it was really fun to be hunting these guys down. It's so difficult to overtake here that you need like a 1.5-second deficit to the car ahead. What was really surprising is that the hard [tyre] hadn't dropped off as much as we had thought, but also our tyres dropped off a lot in trying to catch up the huge gap that we were behind."

Daniel Moxon