Hamilton races Ocon in Japanese GP pitlane in ‘very rare’ and ‘cool’ moment

Lewis Hamilton commits to Mercedes until 2025

Lewis Hamilton was pictured enjoying a childhood pastime with fellow F1 driver Esteban Ocon at the Suzuka Circuit ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix this weekend as the pair competed in a remote-control car race in the pit lane.

In 1992, a young Hamilton partook in an RC car race on popular BBC children’s television programme Blue Peter, coming out on top despite only having picked the control pad one year prior. Hamilton got his start in RC racing when his father bought him his first electric car at six years old.

Most drivers start with karts but Hamilton wouldn’t get into one of those until a couple of years later. When he did he won almost everything he could.

At the age of 13, he had got so good that McLaren signed him onto their Driver Development Support programme and the rest is history. In the FIA press conference, Hamilton revealed how much he enjoyed the “very rare” mental break from being an F1 driver with Ocon.

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“So Esteban and I had planned a while ago that while we are here we would get our remote control cars together and have a bit of a race in the pit lane,” explained Hamilton.

“For me, it was very reminiscent of when I was a kid on Blue Peter and it was really cool. We all share more in common than we probably think other than the fact we are pure rare. It’s very rare we all get to do things like that. It was fun.”

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It was just a bit of fun,” said Ocon. “We were spinning around. I wasn’t far off your [Ocon’] pace,” Hamilton added.

Ocon replied: “I was super impressed because he hadn’t done it in years. He was like start slow and all that. I practise a lot – I am constantly on it. Straight away, first braking point he nails it. That’s more than impressive.”

“I flipped it a lot of times but I had a softer setup,” Hamilton concluded.

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