Practical jokes and paddock mischief: Halloween inspiration with F1's greatest pranks

Formula 1 drivers are used to keeping their rivals on their toes, but sometimes the biggest surprises happen away from the circuit. From team radio trickery to elaborate practical jokes years in the making, the paddock has never been short of mischief.

And while today's grid has plenty of pranksters, it is a tradition stretching back decades, with even some of the sport's greatest World Champions getting involved. With Halloween approaching, we revisit some of F1's most memorable practical jokes.

The team mates who just can't help themselves

Few Formula 1 partnerships have produced quite as many practical jokes as Ayrton Senna and Gerhard Berger's time together at McLaren between 1990 and 1992.

The Austrian was notorious for his mischievous sense of humour, and Senna frequently found himself on the receiving end. Their friendship produced several legendary stories, but perhaps the most memorable involved a trip to Australia, a hotel room and approximately 50 frogs.

After spotting frogs on a golf course during an evening run, Berger enlisted the help of a hotel concierge to collect them, reportedly handing over $100 for the favour. With the assistance of Ron Dennis' wife Lisa, Berger then scattered the frogs throughout Senna's room while the Brazilian was out at dinner.

When a furious Senna confronted his team mate the following morning, Berger had one more trick up his sleeve, asking if he had found the snake yet!

Fortunately for Senna, the snake didn't actually exist.

That wasn't the end of their antics, either. Berger also famously replaced Senna's passport photograph with an inappropriate image and once threw his supposedly indestructible briefcase out of a helicopter. Senna eventually retaliated by filling Berger's shoes with shaving foam.

Decades later, Ferrari teammates Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz developed their own entertaining partnership, although their pranks tended to be considerably less elaborate.

For Sainz' 28th birthday in September 2022, Leclerc spent around 15 minutes squeezed inside a cupboard in his team mate's driver room, waiting for the perfect opportunity to jump out and surprise him.

The plan worked, with an unsuspecting Sainz opening the cupboard to find Leclerc bursting out with confetti. Unfortunately, some of it also landed in the birthday boy's coffee.

At least Charles remembered his birthday!

When even the press conferences aren't safe

An FIA press conference might not seem like the obvious location for a practical joke, but Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel proved otherwise at the 2012 German Grand Prix.

As Nico Rosberg attempted to answer a question, the two former World Champions noticed that his microphone was considerably louder than everyone else's.

Rather than alerting him to the problem, Schumacher encouraged Vettel to move Rosberg's microphone even closer to his mouth.

The result was an increasingly distorted answer as Rosberg spoke on, with the drivers around him struggling to contain their laughter.

And they weren't the only drivers to cause chaos during interviews. Following the 1999 Canadian Grand Prix, Eddie Irvine interrupted Mika Hakkinen's post-race interviews by throwing a towel at the McLaren driver, sparking an escalating exchange involving water.

Radio silence? Not quite...

There are few messages an engineer wants to hear less than a driver suddenly announcing an engine problem in the closing stages of a Grand Prix.

At the 2011 Japanese Grand Prix, Sergio Perez decided to use exactly that scenario for a joke.

The Sauber driver had started the race in 17th but produced an impressive recovery drive to climb into eighth, putting him on course for a valuable points finish. Then, on the final lap, Perez radioed his team to announce that he had no power.

His race engineer Marco Schupbach urged him to keep pushing towards the finish, only for Perez to reveal, after crossing the line, that the entire thing had been a joke.

Fortunately, Schupbach was quick to get his revenge!

The engineer told Perez that his teammate Kamui Kobayashi had finished fourth, despite actually crossing the line in 13th. The Mexican was completely taken in, repeatedly questioning the result before Schupbach revealed that he had been pranked in return.

And their practical jokes didn't stop there. Ahead of the 2012 Belgian Grand Prix, Schupbach enlisted the help of the Sauber team, including Kobayashi, for an elaborate revenge prank. Convincing Perez he was testing new wet-weather technology, they fitted a fake rain button to his steering wheel, leaving the Mexican puzzled by the supposed innovation. The entire encounter was secretly filmed, giving the team the last laugh nearly a year after his original radio prank.

Antonelli versus Bono: The Mercedes prank war

Kimi Antonelli might be fighting for the World Championship in 2026, but that hasn't stopped the Mercedes driver waging a rather different battle against his race engineer, Peter 'Bono' Bonnington.

It began during 2025 pre-season testing in Bahrain, when Antonelli celebrated Bono's birthday by pushing a plate of cream cake into his face. A year later, the Italian returned armed with a powerful water pistol, chasing his engineer through the paddock and even attracting the attention of Bono's former driver and seven-time World Champion, Lewis Hamilton.

Bono wasn't going down without a fight, threatening Antonelli with a fire extinguisher before getting his revenge by secretly adding hot sauce to the youngster's water bottle.

By May, Antonelli had taken his antics back to Mercedes HQ in Brackley, arranging for Bono's security pass to be deactivated. When the engineer found himself locked out, he immediately suspected the culprit to be the young Italian!

The tables eventually turned at the Italian Grand Prix in September, when a group of Mercedes mechanics ambushed Antonelli with plates of whipped cream to celebrate his 20th birthday, some wearing protective ponchos for the occasion.

But there is one person Antonelli hasn't dared to prank just yet – Team Principal Toto Wolff. Speaking in October, the Italian admitted that targeting his boss would require considerably more courage, but a successful championship campaign might finally give him an excuse!

A seat at the table for George Russell

When the drivers gathered for their traditional end-of-season dinner ahead of the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, tensions between Max Verstappen and George Russell were already making headlines.

After the pair clashed during the previous race weekend in Qatar, the rest of the grid spotted an opportunity for some entertainment.

Naturally, the rest of the grid spotted an opportunity for some entertainment.

As Liam Lawson later explained on an F1 podcast, the drivers deliberately filled the seats around the dinner table while keeping a place free beside Verstappen for the late-arriving Russell.

When Russell finally appeared, Verstappen cheerfully informed him that they had saved him a seat!

Unfortunately for the pranksters, Russell wasn't prepared to play along. Rather than take the offered spot, he simply picked up the chair, carried it to the opposite end of the table and sat alongside his then-Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Lawson later admitted the group had found the entire situation hilarious, even if their intended victim hadn't been quite so amused!

An ear-resistible prank

Returning to the scene of his 1976 Nurburgring accident might have seemed an unlikely setting for a practical joke, but Niki Lauda had other ideas.

In 2013, ahead of the release of Rush, the film depicting his rivalry with James Hunt, Lauda returned to the Nurburgring with an American television crew.

As the three-time World Champion discussed his infamous 1976 accident, in which he suffered severe burns and injuries, he suddenly bent down and retrieved something lying in the grass.

Holding it up, Lauda jokingly announced that he had discovered his missing ear.

The horrified reaction was exactly what he had hoped for. The object was actually a biscuit that Lauda had discreetly placed on the ground beforehand, allowing him to turn a serious interview into an unforgettable practical joke.

The next generation of paddock pranksters

The 2026 grid has provided its own share of practical jokes, particularly at Racing Bulls, where Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad have been getting creative with their attempts to embarrass one another.

In October, Lawson teamed up with Sky Sports F1 presenters Simon Lazenby and Naomi Schiff to trick his rookie team mate into taking part in a staged television interview, completely unaware that the whole thing had been arranged as a prank.

But Lindblad soon had his revenge. With the help of a hidden earpiece, he turned Lawson into an unsuspecting participant in a series of challenges around the paddock, directing his team mate through the experience and putting him in some rather uncomfortable situations, including stealing Charles Leclerc’s microphone mid-interview.

And the McLaren drivers aren't immune to a little mischief either. During a media day karting challenge at Silverstone in July, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri took control of a two-person kart, with Norris operating the pedals and Piastri steering.

But after the challenge ended, Norris decided to accelerate away with his unsuspecting team mate still aboard, leaving Piastri unable to do much other than hold on for the ride, even losing his hat in the process.

More than three decades after Berger was sneaking frogs into Senna's hotel room, F1's tradition of practical jokes is still going strong.

And with Halloween approaching, a few drivers might want to keep an especially close eye on their team mates...