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A Drunk World Champion
F1 driver briefings happen prior to every Grand Prix and are the thing of folklore. They are very much a closed-door affair with just the 24 race drivers, reserve drivers and team managers with Race Director Charlie Whiting in the hot seat. No media are allowed and the subject of the conversations that occur in these meetings very rarely see the light of day. This is partly due to the fact that whatever is discussed is probably incredibly boring, such as cutting kerbs, crossing white lines, DRS zones and the like. And partly, because all anybody is interested in, is whom Michael Schumacher will have an argument with.
Having said all of this, one strange request from Charlie Whiting in Istanbul this weekend was; that if any driver under the age of 24 reached the podium then they were not allowed to drink the champagne.
Turkey has recently come under some fairly stringent drinking laws and has chosen to increase the legal drinking age to 24! At age 23 this meant that when Sebastian Vettel jumped onto the top step of the podium, he legally couldn`t touch a drop of the winners bubbly.
What a crazy situation to find himself in. He has, since the age of 8, driven racing cars flat out, pretty much every day. He is a World Champion, whom I am guessing has maybe had a few shandy`s since to celebrate? He is employed by Red Bull who last year sold 3.9 billion cans, most of which I guess were mixed with Vodka.
But he is not allowed a little sip of the winners champagne on the podium.
Luckily, for sanity, in this mad world, Seb did have a sip. In fact he had a bloody great gulp, as shown in my photo above.
The police did not suddenly raid the podium and stick a breathalyser in his mouth. He didn`t even stumble, fall over and end up in a pile of vomit. Neither did he pick a fight with Fernando. He didn`t end up with the ugliest grid girl and regret it the following morning. He didn`t even slur ` I reaallly Luuurve Yooou` to Mark Webber. I am also guessing that he drove himself to the airport and didn't crash once. Madness.
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