Lewis Hamilton, Painted in Used Motor Oil

All you Hamilton female fans out there (Nicole included) relax...! The Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver was not smeared with the toxic stuff, but only got a portrait of himself in Mobil 1 race oil, taken directly from the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes car in which he won last year's British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

The one who did get smeared with the stuff while using it for the painting is US artist David Macaluso, who was commissioned by Mobil 1 to portrait Hamilton in this unconventional manner for the National Oil Check Week.

The painting will have its first public outing at the ExxonMobil VIP customer event, on the eve of Hamilton's home Grand Prix at Silverstone. A limited run of 50 prints of the painting has also been made and all of them are being offered as a prize in a competition (details here) in the run-up to the British GP.

"I'm very impressed with the oil painting. I've always known that the Mobil 1 in my race car is an important component that can give us an edge over our rivals in some circumstances, but I'd never have guessed you could use it to paint with; the oil gives this picture a unique look and feel...," Hamilton said while acknowledging the other possible use of used motor oil.

"Painting with the Mobil 1 used motor oil offered a wide range of tones and was obviously a very refined product from its texture. It was extremely smooth and very particle-rich, with all the engine dirt in perpetual suspension, making for a great painting medium," David Macaluso.

A polite way of saying he then spent two days in the bathroom cleaning up...