Monitor lizard seen on F1 S’pore track again, gets chased away by race marshals

Monitor lizard seen on track during final F1 S’pore practice session on 21 Sept

A monitor lizard put a momentary stop to proceedings during a practice session at this year’s Formula One (F1) Singapore Grand Prix (GP) — again.

The race finally resumed only after the reptile was chased away by at least two race marshals.

F1 driver warns of lizard on track

At 5.50pm on Saturday (21 Sept), the official F1 Facebook account posted that there was a “lizard on track” during the final practice session.

According to the post, engineers were informed of its appearance by Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso, who said it was in the middle of the track.

F1 said it was one of the “weirdest red flags ever”.

The waving of a red flag meant all on-track activities had to be stopped.

Lizard on chased away by F1 marshals

In order to restart the session, the lizard had to be removed.

This called for the services of at least two people — the Intervention Marshal, the main chaser, and the Chief Post Marshal, who followed with a plastic bag presumably to put the reptile in.

As they pursued the lizard, it sprinted away rather quickly — fittingly for an event that’s all about speed.

Its antics also amused the watching crowd, which included VCARB driver Daniel Riccardo.

Delay took 11 minutes

Eventually, though, the track was cleared and the green flag was waved.

The delay took just 11 minutes, reported The Sun.

After the dust settled, McLaren’s Lando Norris claimed pole position in the qualifying session, standing him in good stead for Sunday’s race.

3rd lizard ‘invasion’ in S’pore GP history

Interestingly, this was the third lizard “track invasion” in Singapore GP history.

The first time was way back in 2016 when driver Max Verstappen came face-to-face with a lizard on the track, describing it as “Godzilla”.

Last year, the yellow flag was raised three times during a practice session due to lizard sightings on the track.

Also read: Monitor Lizard Spotted Crawling On F1 S’pore Track During Practice Session On 15 Sep

Monitor Lizard Spotted Crawling On F1 S’pore Track During Practice Session On 15 Sep

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Featured image adapted from @f1 on Instagram and F1 on Facebook.