Virgin boss Richard Branson has revealed he celebrated so hard after Brawn GP's first win of its fairytale 2009 campaign that he accidentally urinated on an autograph-seeking fan.
The Brawn team's championship-winning season is the stuff of F1 legend. Purchased by Ross Brawn after Honda's withdrawal in 2008, the team with the sponsor-free livery dominated winter testing, before securing Virgin sponsorship on the eve of the opening race of the season in Australia.
Eventual world champion Jenson Button would kick off his season with victory in Melbourne. The post-race party which followed escalated quickly, with the hangover which followed presumably enough to prompt Branson into a period of abstinence from alcohol which lasted for the next six months.
Speaking to YouTube's Graham Bensinger about that race and after-party, Branson recalls: "I was jet-lagged. I drank too much.
"I was celebrating this big victory and I was having a pee in the toilet in a cubicle, and somebody came and asked for my autograph. And I'm told that I just turned around, signed, and left my mark all the way down his trousers. Anyway I gave up drinking for six months after that night and I'm now OK again... Sometimes people actually ask to shake my hand when I'm having a pee and that's really bizarre."
After seeing Brawn claim both championships and become the factory Mercedes team for 2010, Branson joined the grid with his own entry -- Virgin Racing. However, opportunities to replicate the party he enjoyed in Melbourne would be scarce. Virgin failed to score a point in either of its two seasons in the sport, finishing 12th on both occasions, before becoming Marussia for 2012.
Branson now has a team in the all-electric series Formula E, which he has previously predicted will be the only motor racing championship left in future.