WATCH : Lewis Hamilton Pushes His McLaren Car Like a Shopping Cart

Lewis Hamilton is a modern-day F1 legend. He has won 6 world championships and is only one short of equaling the record set by Michael Schumacher. He’s been dominating the grid with Mercedes, having won 5 world titles with them. His first world title had come in 2008, when he was driving for McLaren. However, apart from his title-winning moment at Mclaren, another interesting image of Lewis’ time over there, springs to mind. An image involving Lewis pushing his car back to the paddock.

Lewis Hamilton pushes his McLaren MP4-25 to the paddock on account of low fuel

The incident took place on the 12th of June 2010. Exactly 10 years ago! (time flies by, doesn’t it?). Lewis Hamilton had just taken pole in the Canadian Grand Prix. As he celebrated the moment by pumping his fists and waving his hands, his race engineer, Andy Latham came on the radio. Latham said, “Ok Lewis, we need you to stop on the circuit, please. We need you to stop on the circuit, there’s not enough fuel and we need to have a fuel sample. We need you to stop out there, sorry that’s a fantastic job from you!”

Lewis then promptly shuts off the engine and rolls his way down an incline. Lewis then decides to take matters into his own hands, by hopping off the car and pushing it like a shopping cart, until the stewards arrive and take the job from him.

The reason Lewis had to push his own car was that it was critically low on fuel. FIA rules state that after a team is done with qualifying, they have to save enough fuel in the car, to enable the FIA to test for any forbidden compounds in the fuel.

However, this was the last time Lewis pulled off this antic without sacrificing his pole position. He was involved in a similar incident in the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix. Lewis finished qualifying in pole position but had to start dead last in the race because he didn’t have sufficient fuel left for testing. Fittingly, the only thing that overshadowed this incident was Pastor Maldonado’s only career win that took place the very next day.