Former McLaren engineer Marc Priestley has revealed the experiences he had partying with Lewis Hamilton during the pair’s time together at the Woking-based team, revealing that the Brit ‘took over the decks’ after winning his first World Championship.
Hamilton was a phenomenon during his early McLaren days, and after narrowly missing out on an unprecedented rookie title success in 2007, he went one better in 2008, snatching the Drivers’ Championship crown away from Felipe Massa on the final lap of a chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix.
The nature of the victory sparked wild celebrations in the McLaren garage, and according to engineer Priestley, they carried on long into the night. “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!”
However, while Priestley recounts Hamilton’s parties fondly, the seven-time world champion is not the F1 star with the wildest celebrations. That honour is split between Ferrari icon Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen.
“I can imagine Max Verstappen and Michael Schumacher would had 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,” he continued.
“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 Max 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.”
