Lewis Hamilton put on a show for Formula 1 fans in Las Vegas on Saturday 5th November, rallying his Mercedes car up and down the world-famous Las Vegas strip.
The seven-time world champion showed up to the Las Vegas Grand Prix launch party, an event celebrating the city being added back in to the F1 calendar for 2023 – which is already demanding exorbitant prices for hotel rooms – in his Mercedes F1 car, which he raced up and down the iconic strip before completing some customary doughnuts for the fans.
WATCH: Lewis Hamilton Completes Some Doughnuts At The Las Vegas Grand Prix Launch Party
While doughnuts are always guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser, it was the addition of lighting underneath Lewis’ car that drew our attention. In true Tokyo Drift fashion, Lewis’ Mercedes had been fitted with colour-matching blue lighting under the car’s floor, adding an extra layer of “ooooh, aahhhh,” to his doughnut demonstration.
It’s not just us who were completely bowled over by the modded Mercedes. Several Formula 1 fans on Twitter have made a case for the under car lighting to become commonplace at night time races.
Forget a flexifloor, make under lights and wheel lights mandatory, and make them change colour when DRS or hybrid energy is being used pic.twitter.com/Y52JL0epdm
— Curtis Moldrich (@Khurtizz) November 6, 2022
However, it almost all went wrong for the most successful Formula 1 driver in history.
The clouds of smoke and dark conditions made it difficult for Hamilton to see where he was positioning the car, at one point almost crashing the car into the barrier. Fortunately for the Briton, he was able to see the funny side afterwards, joking about it on stage with fellow drivers Sergio Perez and George Russell.
Hamilton said, “I nearly crashed. There was so much smoke I had no idea where I was.”
“I couldn’t figure out where the buildings were. I tried to pull up on the side and there was a barrier!”
Perez and Russell were also racing up the strip, past iconic buildings such as Caesar’s Palace and the Bellagio, in what was a crazy showing for Formula 1 fans that turned up to watch and proved to be a great introduction to what will undoubtedly be the spectacle of the 2023 Formula 1 race calendar.
Before all that, though, we have the 2022 season to finalise, with races in Brazil and the season-ending race in Abu Dhabi. With Max Verstappen and his Red Bull team having already secured the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships, it means we’re not going to get quite the same level of controversy seen at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
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