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Laurence Edmondson, F1 Editor
A monitor lizard interrupted the final practice for the Singapore Grand Prix on Saturday after running across the track during a live session.
Shortly after the creature was spotted by television cameras at Turn 17, race control suspended the session with a red flag to allow marshals to chase the lizard from the circuit.
Track action resumed shortly after without further interruption.
Fernando Alonso came across the lizard on the exit of Turn 17 shortly after his engineer had told him to keep an eye out for it in the final sector.
“It’s in the middle of the track,” the Aston Martin driver said over team radio before returning to the pits.
Monitor lizards are a common sight on the island of Singapore and the appearance in Saturday’s final practice followed a similar incident during Friday practice last year.
Singapore’s National Parks’ Board states on its website that monitor lizards are typically shy, unless cornered or chased, and advises observing them from afar.
Three types are native to Singapore, with the largest, the Malayan water monitor, growing up to three metres in length. Although they secrete venom to kill their prey, it is not fatal for humans.
They are diurnal, meaning they sleep at night, and on all three occasions that they have been spotted on track during a Singapore race weekend it has been in sessions shortly before sunset.
After an appearance of a particularly large lizard during final practice in 2016, the track invader was nicknamed “Godzilla” by Max Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase over Red Bull’s team radio.
Source: www.espn.com