Hamilton 'calls out' his mother: 'She made my underwear shrink!'
F1 News
- Ludo van Denderen
Why are Red Bull Racing so successful? It could just be because of Christian Horner. The team principal once revealed that he has a lucky toilet at every circuit: if he keeps going there during the Grand Prix weekend, then his team is successful. Surely, there are plenty of critics who believe there are other reasons for Red Bull's success than having a lucky pot. They probably chalk this up to superstition, which incidentally affects more people than Horner alone in the sport.
These days Lewis Hamilton has no rituals; in his younger years, it was different. "But definitely until I was about 18, 19, I did. So I had a lucky conker. Somehow, I used to put it in my suit, like Sanka would put the lucky egg in Cool Runnings. And I don't know how, but it disappeared in a race. And then lucky underwear as well. My mum shrunk them in the wash," laughs the seven-time world champion, who then refers to tennis players.
"Where they bounce the ball several times, or whether it's getting in the car from one side or putting your right sock on first. You know, like the sequence you would normally go through. And I missed one of the sequences, and I crashed. It was like a race in Germany when I was in Formula 3, and I was like, after that, no more superstitions."
Stroll also obsessed with his pants
Lance Stroll also suffered from it in his early years: "Back in my karting days, I'd religiously wash my underwear every night and make sure it went in the wash. And if I was really desperate, sometimes it didn't go in the wash! But no, after many years, those things kind of fade. And yeah, I guess it gets a bit dull. And the underwear got a bit small over the years, so I had to give it up!"
This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy