How a “giant lizard” on the track led to perhaps the weirdest radio message in F1 history

If you've ever watched Formula 1 racing you'll know that the drivers have radios in the car so they can talk to their engineers on the pitwall.

It's normally tediously boring stuff about tyre temperatures, mysteriously coded things like "strat mode four, forward two clicks, Nico", or the drivers complaining because someone else just passed them. Very rarely do you get messages from the drivers about the local flora and fauna. They are usually far too busy pushing "the pedal to the medal" to notice anything other than the road in front of them. But in practice for this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix in, well, Singapore, Max Verstappen got something of a shock when he was flying round the track in his Red Bull Racing car. "There's a giant lizard on the track! I'm not joking," he radioed back to his no doubt confused team. Now, to be fair to young Max, this does look like a pretty big lizard, especially (one would imagine) if it runs across the circuit in front of your car while you hurtle towards it at the best part of 200 miles per hour. https://twitter.com/F1/status/777089112897687552 His team certainly found it funny enough... https://twitter.com/F1/status/777090133036298244 Qualifying for the race takes place at 1pm on Saturday (UK time), and it's the one race of the year where Mercedes pair Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg might actually not get pole position, with Verstappen and his Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo expected to take the fight to the Mercs. Lizards or no lizards. https://twitter.com/sharkieQ/status/777090595021987841 Read more from SportsJOE: