Lewis Hamilton pulls prank on school children by disguising himself as ageing engineer

Lewis Hamilton looked anything but a man under pressure when he pranked school pupils visiting the Mercedes' team HQ in Northamptonshire.

Hamilton, 36, masked himself as an elderly engineer, literally, before revealing his true identity to the star-struck youngsters.

The primary school children, from Camden, were invited to the premises in Brackley because they harbour ambitions to forge careers in engineering and automotive industries.

They'd already been given the opportunity to speak about their ambitions when the seven-time F1 world champion appeared, and after pulling off his greying beard, attached to a latex face mask, allowed some of the visitors to hold on to the steering wheel of his car.

Lewis Hamilton's full disguise was enough to fool the youngsters (UBS/Youtube)

He wasn't just there to fool around though, delivering an inspirational speech to the pupils about the importance of mindset and attitude towards education.

"Education I know is key for every child and we're in a time more than ever before where we need to make sure we're providing opportunities and also enabling the younger generation to understand what they are," he told MailSport .

"There are a lot of youngsters who don't realise that being an engineer, for example, is an avenue that they can go down.

"We're really trying to have a positive impact on the people that we meet, in particular the youth, and I'm proud of the things we are doing together."

The trip was arranged by UBS, a partner of the Mercedes-AMG F1 team, as part of their ongoing investment into quality education for young people in the UK.

Earlier this month, Hamilton himself launched an education scheme, with the aim of boosting the recruitment of black teachers in science, technology and maths (STEM) subjects.

Lewis Hamilton later revealed his true identity to the stunned children (UBS/Youtube)

The two-year programme is being run in partnership with education charity Teach First.

While the British driver continues to do good work off the race track, the pressure is heating up on it, with him now trailing F1 championship leader Max Verstappen by 12 points with five races of the F1 season remaining.

Verstappen, 24, held off his rival to win an exciting US Grand Prix on Sunday, but the title race is still set to go down to the wire with races in Mexico, Brazil, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Abu Dhabi to come.

Hamilton is bidding to become the first driver in history to win eight world titles.