Alonso retired because of a stray sandwich bag
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Fernando Alonso qualified in the top ten on Saturday in Bahrain, but drove a race he will soon want to forget. He had the speed to score points, but as the race went on he accumulated problems and finally something silly put an end to his race.
Problems started after the first pitstop
During the race it became clear that Alonso had to retire due to overheated brakes at the rear. However, the Spaniard was no longer in a position to take advantage of the situation, so he was not hurting too much. The cause of the overheated brakes turned out to be pure bad luck. Neither Alonso nor Alpine itself could do anything about it.
"After his first stop we had a small issue that forced us to reduce the performance of the car, then after the second stop, a sandwich paper got stuck inside the rear brake duct of Fernando’s car, which led to high temperatures and caused some damage to the brake system, so we retired him for safety reasons," said team principal Marcin Budkowski in a press release.
Alpine's poor first weekend was complete when Esteban Ocon, driving outside the points, was torpedoed by Sebastian Vettel. It is the first time since 2017 that the team (Renault) failed to score points during its first GP weekend.