Components 1 drivers are used to maintaining their rivals on their toes, however typically the largest surprises occur away from the circuit. From workforce radio trickery to elaborate sensible jokes years within the making, the paddock has by no means been in need of mischief.
And whereas at the moment’s grid has loads of pranksters, it’s a custom stretching again a long time, with even a number of the sport’s best World Champions getting concerned. With Halloween approaching, we revisit a few of F1’s most memorable sensible jokes.
The workforce mates who simply can not help themselves
Few Components 1 partnerships have produced fairly as many sensible jokes as Ayrton Senna and Gerhard Berger’s time collectively at McLaren between 1990 and 1992.
The Austrian was infamous for his mischievous sense of humour, and Senna continuously discovered himself on the receiving finish. Their friendship produced a number of legendary tales, however maybe probably the most memorable concerned a visit to Australia, a lodge room and roughly 50 frogs.
After recognizing frogs on a golf course throughout a night run, Berger enlisted the assistance of a lodge concierge to gather them, reportedly handing over $100 for the favour. With the help of Ron Dennis’ spouse Lisa, Berger then scattered the frogs all through Senna’s room whereas the Brazilian was out at dinner.
When a livid Senna confronted his workforce mate the next morning, Berger had another trick up his sleeve, asking if he had discovered the snake but!
Fortuitously for Senna, the snake did not truly exist.
That wasn’t the top of their antics, both. Berger additionally famously changed Senna’s passport {photograph} with an inappropriate picture and as soon as threw his supposedly indestructible briefcase out of a helicopter. Senna ultimately retaliated by filling Berger’s sneakers with shaving foam.
A long time later, Ferrari teammates Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz developed their very own entertaining partnership, though their pranks tended to be significantly much less elaborate.
For Sainz’ twenty eighth birthday in September 2022, Leclerc spent round quarter-hour squeezed inside a cabinet in his workforce mate’s driver room, ready for the proper alternative to leap out and shock him.
The plan labored, with an unsuspecting Sainz opening the cabinet to search out Leclerc bursting out with confetti. Sadly, a few of it additionally landed within the birthday boy’s espresso.
No less than Charles remembered his birthday!
When even the press conferences aren’t protected
An FIA press convention won’t appear to be the plain location for a sensible joke, however Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel proved in any other case on the 2012 German Grand Prix.
As Nico Rosberg tried to reply a query, the 2 former World Champions observed that his microphone was significantly louder than everybody else’s.
Slightly than alerting him to the issue, Schumacher inspired Vettel to maneuver Rosberg’s microphone even nearer to his mouth.
The end result was an more and more distorted reply as Rosberg spoke on, with the drivers round him struggling to comprise their laughter.
They usually weren’t the one drivers to trigger chaos throughout interviews. Following the 1999 Canadian Grand Prix, Eddie Irvine interrupted Mika Hakkinen’s post-race interviews by throwing a towel on the McLaren driver, sparking an escalating alternate involving water.
Radio silence? Not fairly…
There are few messages an engineer needs to listen to lower than a driver out of the blue saying an engine drawback within the closing phases of a Grand Prix.
On the 2011 Japanese Grand Prix, Sergio Perez determined to make use of precisely that state of affairs for a joke.
The Sauber driver had began the race in seventeenth however produced a formidable restoration drive to climb into eighth, placing him on the right track for a helpful factors end. Then, on the ultimate lap, Perez radioed his workforce to announce that he had no energy.
His race engineer Marco Schupbach urged him to maintain pushing in the direction of the end, just for Perez to disclose, after crossing the road, that the whole factor had been a joke.
Fortuitously, Schupbach was fast to get his revenge!
The engineer instructed Perez that his teammate Kamui Kobayashi had completed fourth, regardless of truly crossing the road in thirteenth. The Mexican was fully taken in, repeatedly questioning the end result earlier than Schupbach revealed that he had been pranked in return.
And their sensible jokes did not cease there. Forward of the 2012 Belgian Grand Prix, Schupbach enlisted the assistance of the Sauber workforce, together with Kobayashi, for an elaborate revenge prank. Convincing Perez he was testing new wet-weather expertise, they fitted a pretend rain button to his steering wheel, leaving the Mexican puzzled by the supposed innovation. All the encounter was secretly filmed, giving the workforce the final snigger practically a 12 months after his authentic radio prank.
Antonelli versus Bono: The Mercedes prank conflict
Kimi Antonelli could be combating for the World Championship in 2026, however that hasn’t stopped the Mercedes driver waging a relatively completely different battle towards his race engineer, Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington.
It started throughout 2025 pre-season testing in Bahrain, when Antonelli celebrated Bono’s birthday by pushing a plate of cream cake into his face. A 12 months later, the Italian returned armed with a strong water pistol, chasing his engineer via the paddock and even attracting the eye of Bono’s former driver and seven-time World Champion, Lewis Hamilton.
Bono wasn’t happening with out a combat, threatening Antonelli with a hearth extinguisher earlier than getting his revenge by secretly including sizzling sauce to the teenager’s water bottle.
By Might, Antonelli had taken his antics again to Mercedes HQ in Brackley, arranging for Bono’s safety cross to be deactivated. When the engineer discovered himself locked out, he instantly suspected the offender to be the younger Italian!
The tables ultimately turned on the Italian Grand Prix in September, when a bunch of Mercedes mechanics ambushed Antonelli with plates of whipped cream to rejoice his twentieth birthday, some sporting protecting ponchos for the event.
However there’s one particular person Antonelli hasn’t dared to prank simply but – Staff Principal Toto Wolff. Talking in October, the Italian admitted that focusing on his boss would require significantly extra braveness, however a profitable championship marketing campaign would possibly lastly give him an excuse!
A seat on the desk for George Russell
When the drivers gathered for his or her conventional end-of-season dinner forward of the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, tensions between Max Verstappen and George Russell have been already making headlines.
After the pair clashed in the course of the earlier race weekend in Qatar, the remainder of the grid noticed a possibility for some leisure.
Naturally, the remainder of the grid noticed a possibility for some leisure.
As Liam Lawson later defined on an F1 podcast, the drivers intentionally crammed the seats across the dinner desk whereas maintaining a spot free beside Verstappen for the late-arriving Russell.
When Russell lastly appeared, Verstappen cheerfully knowledgeable him that they’d saved him a seat!
Sadly for the pranksters, Russell wasn’t ready to play alongside. Slightly than take the supplied spot, he merely picked up the chair, carried it to the alternative finish of the desk and sat alongside his then-Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Lawson later admitted the group had discovered the whole scenario hilarious, even when their meant sufferer hadn’t been fairly so amused!
An ear-resistible prank
Returning to the scene of his 1976 Nurburgring accident might need appeared an unlikely setting for a sensible joke, however Niki Lauda had different concepts.
In 2013, forward of the discharge of Rush, the movie depicting his rivalry with James Hunt, Lauda returned to the Nurburgring with an American tv crew.
Because the three-time World Champion mentioned his notorious 1976 accident, wherein he suffered extreme burns and accidents, he out of the blue bent down and retrieved one thing mendacity within the grass.
Holding it up, Lauda jokingly introduced that he had found his lacking ear.
The horrified response was precisely what he had hoped for. The thing was truly a biscuit that Lauda had discreetly positioned on the bottom beforehand, permitting him to show a critical interview into an unforgettable sensible joke.
The following era of paddock pranksters
The 2026 grid has supplied its personal share of sensible jokes, significantly at Racing Bulls, the place Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad have been getting inventive with their makes an attempt to embarrass each other.
In October, Lawson teamed up with Sky Sports activities F1 presenters Simon Lazenby and Naomi Schiff to trick his rookie workforce mate into participating in a staged tv interview, fully unaware that the entire thing had been organized as a prank.
However Lindblad quickly had his revenge. With the assistance of a hidden earpiece, he turned Lawson into an unsuspecting participant in a collection of challenges across the paddock, directing his workforce mate via the expertise and placing him in some relatively uncomfortable conditions, together with stealing Charles Leclerc’s microphone mid-interview.
And the McLaren drivers aren’t proof against a bit mischief both. Throughout a media day karting problem at Silverstone in July, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri took management of a two-person kart, with Norris working the pedals and Piastri steering.
However after the problem ended, Norris determined to speed up away along with his unsuspecting workforce mate nonetheless aboard, leaving Piastri unable to do a lot aside from maintain on for the trip, even shedding his hat within the course of.
Greater than three a long time after Berger was sneaking frogs into Senna’s lodge room, F1’s custom of sensible jokes remains to be going sturdy.
And with Halloween approaching, a couple of drivers would possibly wish to maintain an particularly shut eye on their workforce mates…
