‘I partied with Lewis Hamilton during Christmas and this is what he is really like’ | F1 | Sport
Marc Priestley once opened up about his wild experience partying with Sir Lewis Hamilton at McLaren’s Christmas celebrations. Hamilton got to know team engineer Priestley during his first few years in Formula One, when they were both at McLaren.
After narrowly missing out on an unprecedented rookie title in 2007, Hamilton went one better the following year by clinching the title on the final lap of the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2008. The youngster’s triumph led to wild celebrations in the McLaren garage, according to Priestley, whose one particular anecdote suggests Hamilton knew how to party. “Fernando Alonso did not turn up to our Christmas parties, as you can imagine with how it ended with McLaren,” he told Casino Uden Rufos.
“Lewis Hamilton can be great at the parties. I remember when he won his first world championship in 2008, he brought his girlfriend at the time, Nicole Scherzinger. Hamilton took over the decks at a nightclub we were at and was DJing most of the night. Scherzinger got onto the mic and started singing, with Hamilton joining in, I’ve seen all sides of him!”
Yet, while Priestley recalls Hamilton’s parties with an air of nostalgia, the Brit is not the F1 star with the wildest celebrations. That honour is shared by Ferrari legends Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen.
He continued: “I can imagine Max Verstappen would have some good fun but I don’t think it would have been anything like the Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen parties, which I went to a few of. Raikkonen was a great guy, he took his racing and partying to extreme levels. He would drive his car amazingly with record lap times but he would party like crazy. Raikkonen was like a 22-year-old kid but also a millionaire.
“It was the way to be and it was a good time. Lots of these drivers coming through now are still very young, like Lando Norris and Verstappen but they need to have a bit of fun. But, awareness of being recorded will always be in the back of their minds, and the old drivers never really had to worry about it.
“If a photographer took a picture of something a driver wasn’t supposed to do, they’d ask if the photographer could give them the picture or film and it would never go any further. Now, if someone takes a picture on their phone, it’s online forever.”
Hamilton, now 40 and racing for Ferrari, appears to have simmered a great deal with age when it comes to partying. He did, however, recently enjoy an annual end of season Christmas dinner with his fellow F1 drivers, where he reportedly ordered ‘everything on the menu’.
