10 Massive Fails In Formula 1 History

In a hurry to put out his smoking Footwork, serial back-marker Taki Inoue jumped out of his car to grab a fire extinguisher. Without seeing a circuit vehicle, he ran out in front of it and was hit pretty hard.

The 2005 United States Grand Prix was a complete disaster. Several Michelin tyre failures during practice – even after the French supplier flew in new compounds – highlighted a dangerous problem.

After intense discussions, the 14 Michelin-shod cars completed the formation lap and then pitted, leaving two Ferraris, two Jordan cars and Minardis to race it out. It remains one of F1’s most controversial races.

3. One race...Aaaand they’re gone

The entire MasterCard Lola F1 project definitely deserves a mention. Bringing a team’s plans one year forward was never going to succeed, but they arrived at the 1997 Australian Grand Prix with the garish-liveried, Ford V8-powered T97/30 anyway.

With terrible aerodynamics, Vincenzo Sospiri and Ricardo Rosset were 11 and 13 seconds off the pace in qualifying and unsurprisingly failed to make the grid. Lola withdrew its entry a short while later with £6 million debt and never re-appeared.

You’ve got a comfortable lead and look set to take victory, so why not start waving to the crowd half a lap early? That’s what Nigel Mansell did at the 1991 Canadian Grand Prix, and then his car stopped working, giving the victory to rival Nelson Piquet.

As he toured around the hairpin, he reportedly allowed his revs to drop too low and stalled the engine. Fail.

5. Poor pit call

This one happened very recently. Lewis Hamilton had dominated the 2015 Monaco Grand Prix and looked set to score an easy win. However, during a late Safety Car period, Mercedes opted to pit him, but miscalculated the gap to those behind and caused him to lose the lead.

He emerged in third place, and on a track like Monaco, there was no way to recover ground. Team radio was later released, which revealed Hamilton was also partly to blame for the bad pit call.

Enrique Bernoldi crashed his Arrows during a Sunday morning warm-up for the 2002 Brazilian Grand Prix. The medical car arrived to assist him, but Nick Heidfeld went through the previous corner too quickly and his only path was to the left of the Mercedes. At which point the door opened and he ran the barrier. Oops.

Robert Kubica was driving in third practice for the 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix when he had to make a rather unusual radio message to his team. He found someone’s mobile phone in the cockpit of his F1 car. Safe to say one mechanic was probably quite embarrassed afterwards.

What’s a fail list without Chashtor Maldonado? From a long list of possible Maldonado fails, it’s his 2014 Belgian GP second practice that gets our vote. The reason? He just steered off track, reacted slowly and hit a wall. WTF?

This may not be the most spectacular fail. In fact, it was a pretty slow and clumsy error. But it played a huge part in deciding the 2007 drivers’ championship. Lewis Hamilton was leading the Chinese Grand Prix but McLaren kept him out too long on intermediates, on a drying track.

When he tried to enter the pit lane, he had no grip for the low-speed corner and skidded off into the gravel, where he became beached. That was it: retired. Out of the race. 10 points down the drain.

Jenson Button accidentally pulling into the Red Bull pit box during the Chinese Grand Prix is something I won’t forget in a hurry. The hilariously embarrassing moment must have been in Hamilton’s mind when he pitted in the McLaren box in Malaysia two years later!

What are your most memorable F1 fails?