Yes, I’m serious. That’s not a typo above: Fernando Alonso, who has won two drivers’ championships, was unable to finish the Bahrain Grand Prix with the Alpine race team because of … a sandwich wrapper.
I have so many questions: who’s eating a sandwich near the cars? Or was it a wrapper that was blown by the wind into the track from miles and miles away, like a butterfly effect that eventually cost Alonso a finish?
Whoever that wrapper belonged to, and all jokes aside, it had a serious effect on Alonso’s car.
From Alpine executive Martin Budkowski, via ESPN:
“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 wrap 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.”
Amazing — but you can understand how it damaged the vehicle — how millions and millions of dollars are spent on these cars and a wrap ruined his whole race.
https://youtu.be/VB1zpeaqoQE