silly classic formula one stories

hi hello hi hi. i love formula one, so i thought i'd share some of my favorite stories with my favorite drivers. just "short" summaries, since my memory fails me- a lot. if u want sources ask jackie stewart, idk, he's like omniscient

no chronological order sorrrrreeyyyy!

1) that one time alain was driving elio de angelis back to his hotel after a party of sorts, maybe a celebration so he was incredibly drunk. alain parked a bit off the curb, farther away from the hotel than anyone would want to be, so elio asked him "can you bring me closer to the hotel?" and closer alain did. instead of fixing his parking, he decided: "oh im gonna drive straight into the hotel!" so, he crashed through the entrance of the hotel, and asked "is this close enough?" the 80s were actually insane. thankfully (or not), alain didn't have to pay for the damages as his sponsors decided to pay the poor hotel for the drunk frenchman crashing into it.

2) that one time gerhard berger thought it was a good idea to prank ayrton with frogs. during their stay in australia for a holiday, gerhard got 12 frogs to put into ayrton's room. (fyi, the reason for this is because the two had a prank war during their time as team mates) after coming back into his room, ayrton found all 12 frogs and tried his hardest to catch them. afterwards, he ran to confront gerhard saying: "i've spent an hour catching 12 frogs in my room!" and in response, gerhard decided to pull his leg again and say "did you find the snake?" in continuation of the prank war, ayrton retaliated by buying a stinky disgusting french cheese to put into gerhard's vents. when berger would crank the ac up, the room would begin to smell like rotten cheese, that stuck to everything in the room- including him.

3) the south african drivers strike. in retaliation to new regulations set by the FIA, niki lauda decided to protest and get all the drivers to strike. following a meeting on wednesday to discuss the regulations, a bus on thursday came to pick up the drivers to be taken to a hotel. at the hotel, they barricaded themselves into a room refusing to come out until their conditions were accepted by the race officials and f1 governing bodies. to entertain themselves some decided to put on a show. niki started a stand-up comedy performance, probably to much success. gilles played the piano for the other drivers until he was one-uped by elio de angelis- whom is an incredibly talented pianist. he composed many original works, and once played piano on a german talk show in 1985- linked here: performance. and finally, bruno giacomelli did some cartoons, and afterwards a lecture on italian terrorism in the 70s. whatever floats ur boat i guess. theres actually a lot of photos from this event! linked here: photos

okay thats all. sorry its all from relatively the same era, i swear i have favorite drivers from the 60s and 70s too, its just hard to find stories that arent sad, sigh. thanks for reading!