Lewis Hamilton in street clothes at the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton
David Coulthard spilled the beans on a choppy helicopter ride for he and Lewis Hamilton on their way to do an F1 feature for the BBC.
Not that Hamilton was aware of it though, as he spent the full thing fast asleep.
Lewis Hamilton ‘must have been out partying’
During an appearance on the Red Flags Podcast, 13-time grand prix winner Coulthard was shown a series of memorable photographs and was asked to set the scene for how they came about.
One of those was an image of he and Hamilton walking side-by-side in pilot gear, in front of a line of Red Arrows planes, as Coulthard told the story of what was going on.
As it turned out, the journey to get to RAF Scampton where that photo was taken was just as eventful!
“Well, this was a feature we did for BBC, when I was working for them,” Coulthard began.
“Red Arrows, which is our display team for the Royal Air Force, we went over to, I think it’s RAF Scampton, and I remember I picked up Lewis in a helicopter in Battersea, which is the only place you can land a helicopter in London.
“If you follow Tom Cruise, you’ll see him very often in London getting out of his helicopter, he is usually at Battersea.
“And anyway, we took off from Battersea, I sat in the front with the pilot, Lewis was in the back, and he fell asleep. He must have been either out partying or whatever the night before.
“And we hit fog on the way to the airfield, and we basically had to put down in a field, in a cornfield, because they knew there was big wind generators between Battersea and getting to the airfield.
“And we sat there probably for a good 45 minutes. The whole time Lewis is asleep! We eventually take off. We eventually turn up at the airfield, late. There wasn’t any fog. And then we got to go up with the RAF together.
“And then he drove his Formula 1 car in a sort of shootout along the runway. And I have a picture in my office wall here, actually, where I’m in the jet fighter, and he is in the Formula 1 car. And, yeah, it was just a fun experience. It was a great feature.
“And then a few years later, I did a feature with Tom Cruise, where he drove the Formula 1 car. And then we did it again with Mark Webber and Steve Jones, where Tom and ourselves drove around Silverstone in Porsche road cars ahead of the Top Gun Maverick launch, and we got to do some of those iconic lines.”
Speaking of Tom Cruise, Coulthard expressed his belief that the iconic actor would have been a “very natural fit” for the lead role of the upcoming F1 movie, in which Brad Pitt plays that lead role, portraying ‘Sonny Hayes’.
The movie – due to be released June 25, 2025 internationally and June 27 in the United States and Canada – is revolutionary for the fact that filming took place among the real-life F1 action, the Apex GP team taking its place as an unofficial 11th team at race weekends.
Seven-time World Champion Hamilton served as a co-producer for the film.
“He was on it,” said Coulthard about Cruise during those features, “and you only had to tell him once how all the procedures were.
“And I guess that’s because he’s a pilot, you know. A helicopter looks a lot more complicated to operate than a Formula 1 car.
“I can’t really recall where he was lap time wise, but he was, to my mind, and with the greatest respect to Brad Pitt, who I don’t know, haven’t met and haven’t seen him drive, I would have thought Tom would have been a very natural fit for the F1 movie in terms of driving and leading man.
“But, that’s fallen to Brad, and we’re all curious to see how the movie looks.”
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