Lewis Hamilton plays with lion… then runs away after the big cat turns on the four-time F1 world champion

NEWLY-CROWNED Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton almost didn’t make it to the track – after fleeing a lion’s den when the big cat turned on him.
Hamilton, who won his fourth world title in Mexico City, posted an Instagram video of him playing with a group of lion cubs before heading into a darkened den with a trainer.

Dressed in shorts and a baseball cap, Hamilton reaches out to pet the lion, before the overly eager animal climbed on a wall to get closer to him.

As the carnivore circles the pen, Hamilton looks nervously into the camera as the cat nears ever closer – before getting angry with the driver.

The trainer then screams at him to ‘GO OUTSIDE’ of the enclosure.
He was instructed to get out of the enclosure and hopped over the wall, as the trainer struggled to contain the animal.

Earlier in the video, Hamilton is up close and personal with lion cubs and cradles them as though they’re a domestic pet- clearly having forgotten the earlier incident.
He even lifts a lion up and recreates scenes from Disney’s Lion King film and sings along while clutching onto the Simba equivalent.

On Saturday the racing driver posted pictures of himself petting baby lions in Mexico to his Instagram page, but the miniature versions weren’t as threatening as the fully grown version he had to escape from.

Hamilton has clearly been making the most of his trip to Mexico City and has documented his adventures across social media.
He joked that sometimes you just feel like landing a helicopter on your hotel roof…. I’m sure you do Lewis.
Hamilton clearly hadn’t learnt the lesson of Welsh rugby player Scott Baldwin who had his hand bitten by the king of the jungle when he went to pet him ahead of their game in South Africa.