Screenshot via Juuso Peltola on YouTube

Everybody laughs at farts. If they don’t, they need to reevaluate the meaning of joy. Farts are funny, and farts are even funnier when famous athletes let them rip to liven up a generic post-race press conference in one of the most strict, fancier-than-thou racing series there is: Formula One.




“Athletes” being plural in that first paragraph might have thrown you off if you saw the Singapore Grand Prix podium press conference, since it seemed like Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo (naturally) was the only one shameless enough to fart with all of those of cameras and people around. But Ricciardo told Fox Sports Australia awhile after that it was really a deal between himself and three-time champion Lewis Hamilton, who both had to fart and didn’t want to do it alone.

Ricciardo’s fart was, uh, louder, so people at the press conference noticed. It led to answers like this from Hamilton:

“I feel like we distracted you. Have we distracted you? That was a very long-winded question. For those of you watching—we’re all a bit gassy up here. That’s why we are in tears.”


You can only watch that Fox Sports video with Ricciardo linked above if you live in Australia, for no good reason other than to leave you wishing you knew more about this farting ordeal. But that’s alright, because Australian site news.com.au wrote up a summary and they sure did write it up well.

Here, just read it, emphasis ours for extra laughter:

By now everyone knows the rib-tickling moment Daniel Ricciardo let out a trouser cough at the Singpore Grand Prix press conference. ... “Lewis whispers to me before it and says ‘oh man, I really need to fart’,” Ricciardo said, shamelessly dobbing the three-time world champion. “And I said ‘no crap, I do too ... you go first then I’ll go’, because I knew mine was going to be louder.” According to Ricciardo, the fashionable Hamilton barely made a squeak as he deposited his goods. “He went and I didn’t even hear it and I was like ‘come on man’,” Ricciardo said, “(Then I said) alright stuff it, I’m gonna go’. “It was a good moment, I think [Mercedes’] Valtteri [Bottas] tasted it on his lips, it was pretty good. I’m definitely going to be a groomsman at Lewis’ wedding.”


And from a different news.com.au story on the gassy press conference, emphasis ours, because it can’t get any better than this:

Ricciardo struck towards the end of the press conference when the moderator called on any Finnish media to ask their questions to Bottas in his native tongue. ... He can be heard by broadcast microphones asking his F1 rivals if he has their permission to fart. Hamilton and Bottas then appear to give non-committal shrugs before the Red Bull driver unleashes hell. ... Bottas simply cannot deal with the Red Bull star’s engine malfunction and responds to a question about the physical demands of the Singapore Grand Prix by saying it is even more difficult to be sitting through the press conference with Ricciardo. “Try being here now when buddy just flew a kite right there next to me,” Bottas says using a Finnish slang term for letting fluffy off the chain.


That’s it. These fart descriptions are the only thing truly worthy of being on the internet. The rest of us have failed you, and for that we are sorry.