Grand Prix Rejects

After the two week Atlantic crossing their ship stopped in Montevideo for two days. Collins vanished into the city with a young Brazilian woman he had met on shipboard. They had not returned when the steamer prepared to disembark. "The ship's horn sounded," von Trips wrote in his diary. "We looked everywhere onboard...It was horrible. Would he be left behind? How would he make it with no luggage and no money?"
Von Trips pleaded in vain with the captain to wait, then stationed himself at the railing. As the ship edged away from its berth Collins appeared on the quay, running among piles of freight and pulling his girlfriend behind. "There he stood, wondering what to do next," von Trips wrote in his diary. "He had a shock when he saw all the water separating him from the ship."
Collins and his companion jumped into an old skiff and inveigled the crew to cast off. "So began a wild chase," von Trips wrote in his diary. "We were already picking up speed. All the people who were off-duty, the cooks with their tall white hats and passengers of all classes were on deck. They were desperately trying to catch us. Sailors lowered a rope ladder, but in vain. With two others I went back to the captain. 'Slow speed ahead' came the order, and with sweet and sour smiles both our refugees came on board. A raucous and enchanting evening followed."

DOSBoot wrote:This should really be called "The Gerhard Berger Prankster Thread" simply he is that.

Rob Dylan wrote:"this is the same Gerhard Berger who was in a helicopter with Ayrton Senna and asked 'Is this your suitcase?', to which Senna replied 'Yes', to which Gerhard proceeded to throw said suitcase out of the helicopter as a joke"

East Londoner wrote:I read a story about Jean Alesi and a certain mischievous Austrian getting into some bother at Fiorano. Ferrari were planning to launch their 1995 car, when Alesi and Berger, wanting to kill some time, decided to go for a drive in a brand new car that they found parked up at the circuit. It was a Lancia Y10.

Frogfoot9013 wrote:Not sure if this counts as it is to do with a test driver, but is Tomas Scheckter's 'curb crawling' considered to be dicking about?

tommykl wrote:I recently started reading through Pierre Ménard's brilliant, but often badly edited Encyclopedia of Formula One, and Bernard Cahier's foreword features a whole lot of interesting anecdotes.

One that particularly interested me happened a few nights before the 1958 French Grand Prix, when Mike Hawthorn, Luigi Musso, Maurice Trintignant and Cahier himself winched Harry Schell's Vespa up to the first floor balcony of his hotel room, much to Schell's general dismay.

And it got me thinking. What other instances are there of Formula One drivers generally mucking about and causing mischief everywhere they went? The crazier the better!