Dilip Kuner
SPAIN’S double F1 world champion Fernando Alonso had his return to Grand Prix racing wrecked by a sandwich wrapper.
He was running in midfield in Bahrain when the Alpine (formerly Renault) team ordered him to retire due to overheating brakes, it has been revealed.
And it seems a carelessly discarded piece of paper was to blame for bringing the hugely expensive car – which costs tens of millions of euros to build – to a grinding halt.
Marcin Budkowski, Executive Director of the team said: “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. It was a very unlucky first race for Fernando considering how strong he looked.”
Alonso himself was not too downhearted. He said: “Firstly, it was great to be back racing in Formula 1. The start was fun, we gained some places and I had some enjoyable battles with old colleagues.
“However, it was disappointing to not see the chequered flag in the end. The issue we had after the second stop was a rear brake issue as some debris entered the brake ducts and overheated the temperatures of the car.
We’ll go again and fight hard in Imola.”
