Motorsport's greatest blunders

Blunders; everyone loves a good one. Whether we admit it or not, sometimes there is nothing more amusing than enjoying a stupid mistake made by people at the top of their professions.

So here's sister publication Motorsport News's 'you've been framed' of motor racing. MN attempted a similar list a while back and has tried to avoid too much duplication. If there's a blunder missing, it's in that 2004 issue or we've forgotten it, at which point you should contact mn.letters@haymarket.com and have your say.

No offence is intended by our list and many of the writers have spoken to those involved about their experiences, who have taken the flack in good jest.

20. LOEB RUNS OUT OF FUEL

Running out of petrol is rarely as embarrassing or painful as it was for Sebastien Loeb on the 2003 Rally of Turkey.

Rally cars running out of petrol is a rarity these days, with refuels set out on the route and the crews well versed in the bare minimum required to get them back to service. But when you miss the refuel completely, you're beyond help.

That's what happened when Loeb's co-driver Daniel Elena missed a junction after the third stage in Turkey.

As if the Monegasque man's agony at his navigator error wasn't bad enough, the Xsara WRC coughed and died a few kilometres down the wrong road.

Loeb's Citroen team-mates Carlos Sainz and Colin McRae finished first and fourth respectively, so a couple of points would certainly have been on the cards for the pint-sized Alsatian.

What was the gap between Loeb and 2003 champion Petter Solberg at the season's end? One point.

Fortunately, Loeb and Elena made up for it in the next nine years.

19. PITLANE CHAOS IN BRITISH GT

"It was obvious in qualifying that, if there was a full-course yellow, it was going to be carnage," remembers 2008 CRS team manager Malcolm Swetnam of the furore in the pitlane at Thruxton.

Jeremy Metcalfe's CRS Ferrari was leading the Cadena Aston Martin of Barrie Whight when the pit window opened during a safety car period. All but one car came in and chaos ensued, with multiple clashes.

Gavan Kershaw, who was penalised for contact after taking over from Whight, said: "We were blocked in. The pitlane shouldn't have been opened."

Swetnam: "We had our first two cars come in and the Irish [third CRS] car pulled in right in front of us. We went to go but couldn't because the Irish car was there, so the Aston thought he'd come down the right-hand side.

"Finally everyone got away and, while we were trying to pull out, Matt Griffin goes by and rips his rear-wing endplate off on one of our wing mirrors."

Both squads missed the podium and British GT has yet to return to the Hampshire circuit.

18. FIRE TRUCK ROLLS AT BRANDS HATCH

Accidents involving safety cars are remarkably common and pretty well documented. Accidents befalling emergency vehicles are less common, but fire trucks at MotorSport Vision tracks have twice made the news.

Nelson Piquet Jr once stalled at the start of an Oulton Park British Formula 3 round and was collected by a fast-starting fire truck, which ended the Brazilian's race.

However, far more dramatic was to come at a Brands Hatch truck meeting in October 2011.

The race was halted with a truck on its side on the approach to Graham Hill Bend and rescue services were in attendance.

A little while later, one of the pickup-based fire tenders dived through Paddock Hill Bend, got crossed up and rolled onto its roof and back onto its wheels, spraying foam all over the track in the process.

In mitigation, there was a decent slick of oil down through the corner and, thankfully, the only injury was to pride.

17. McRAE THROWS AWAY THE TITLE AT HOME

Colin McRae's speed and bravery deserved more than the one World Rally Championship title he won in 1995. He came close in 1997, but 2001 was the biggest blunder.

The error everyone remembers is McRae dropping it on the Welsh finale, crashing his Ford Focus RS WRC 01 out of a four-way Rally GB title fight, while leading on Rhondda on the first morning. Richard Burns won and took the title.

A penultimate round faux pas on Rally Australia didn't help. Fourth at the end of day one, just five seconds off the lead in Perth, a win down under would have left McRae with an almost unassailable lead going into the final round.

Unfortunately for McRae, he was late arriving at the running order selection meeting at the end of the day and was penalised by being forced to run first on the road, sweeping the surface for the next two days.

All he could manage was fifth and a one-point lead going into Wales. Then he cut that 'don't cut' bend and the rest is history.

McRae had made the event his own, and to throw away the title in such a way left the Scot and his home fans heartbroken.

16. CHINESE CIRCUIT DEFEATS A1GP

The third round of the 2006/07 A1GP season took the series to the streets of Beijing for the first time - and the circuit turned out to b an eye-opener.

The Turn 8 hairpin proved too tight for the drivers to negotiate at any serious speed when they took to the track for the first time on Friday. No simulations had been run before the cars arrived at the track and the final layout had only been agreed in the week leading up to the event.

When practice got under way, some drivers opted to stop and spin turn to negotiate the corner, while others opted to trickle round at walking pace. Others simply crashed.

Organisers had to have a drastic rethink and shortened the circuit to a point where there was enough extra width to allow the machines to negotiate the corner.

15. POND THROWN TO THE LIONS... AND A TREE

Back in the 1980s, the opening day of the RAC Rally was all about spectator stages. Invariably slippery and unpredictable, many drivers took an early bath.

For Tony Pond, lightning struck twice in four years. In 1980, fresh from the start in Bath, Pond steered the works Triumph TR7 V8 onto the Longleat stage.

On the car's last factory rally, Pond spun into a lion feeding table and dropped outside the top 100 while the crew patched the Triumph up. He recovered to seventh over the remaining 440 miles of stages.

Worse was to come four years later at Knowsley Safari Park. It was the first stage from the Chester start and Pond was in the works Rover Vitesse. Barely 100 seconds into the rally, he was caught out by a tightening right-hander and clobbered a tree.

The impact wrecked a front corner and, though he dragged the car to the end of the stage, his rally was over.

14. COULTHARD BLOWS TWO MILLION

What can be worse than shunting after leading a grand prix? Losing £2,000,000, that's what.

David Coulthard headed the Australian Grand Prix in 1995 after taking the lead from poleman and Williams team-mate Damon Hill.

When the first round of stops were imminent, Coulthard flew into the pits, carried too much speed and went straight on at the tight right-hand pit entry.

"The downshift blip gave more rpm so on idle the car pushed on," explains Coulthard.

"I didn't just lock up and crash. I flicked down the gears, got more rpm than I should have, and the combination of that and being too close to the limit made me panic and I didn't pull the clutch in."

So what of the money?

"That was embarrassing and very costly - it cost me more than £2million in bonuses from Williams and in my new contract with McLaren!" he says.

"My bonus if I won at Williams was half a million pounds, and if I had won two races in '95 the contract I'd signed with McLaren would have put an extra million dollars on my annual retainer.

"I was never motivated by money, but that was expensive."

13. YOLUC DESTROYS McLAREN ATTACK

Driving standards have been a point of debate in British GT in recent years, but few events have been as bizarre as the accident that accounted for both Von Ryan Racing McLarens at Rockingham this year.

Fresh from exclusion in the Oulton Park season opener, Turkish driver Salih Yoluc needed to keep it clean in Northamptonshire, but he hit trouble on the first lap.

Approaching the Brook chicane, Yoluc misjudged his distance to Lee Mowle's BMW Z4, clipped the rear of the car and skated helplessly toward the corner, just as the sister McLaren in the hands of Ross Wylie was going for the apex.

The two collided and were instantly out of the race with heavy damage. Yoluc was handed a race ban for the accident, while Wylie described the post-race debrief as "a rather sore point".

Yoluc was suspended by the MSA. He returned at Snetterton, where he was excluded. Again.

12. BAILEY'S EARLY LE MANS CRASH

Big blunders in the early stages of the Le Mans 24 Hours are quite rare, but ex-F1 racer Julian Bailey provided a public exception in 1989, the last year before chicanes appeared on the Mulsanne Straight.

Although Sauber-Mercedes qualified first and second and went on to win, the Silver Arrows did not lead the early laps.

Davy Jones and John Nielsen swiftly moved into first and second, but Bailey wasn't content to let the Jaguars set the pace.

Driving the Nissan R89C he was sharing with Mark Blundell and Martin Donnelly, Bailey charged from 12th to third.

"They weren't in the same race as me," joked Porsche driver Bob Wollek. "They were in a one-lap GP and I was in a 24-hour race!"

Sure enough, Bailey slid into the back of Nielsen at Mulsanne Corner.

Nose askew, the Nissan made it back to the pits, but the front suspension had been pushed into the monocoque. Game over after five laps.

11. ALESI FORGETS TO STOP FOR FUEL

Running in second place in the Australian GP in 1997, Jean Alesi was well set for a decent podium finish in Melbourne - one that would have been vital, after getting a pre-season rocket from Benetton F1's team boss Flavio Briatore.

But Alesi was only running in second place because most of the leading runners had stopped at the mid-distance point to refuel.

Alesi was instructed to do likewise but, inexplicably, he ignored the radio calls. And pitboards. For five laps until the car coughed and spluttered to a halt.

Murray Walker went into overdrive as the cameras panned to furious mechanics packing away the refuelling gear.

A sheepish Alesi said afterwards: "I didn't realise it was time for me to come into the pits for refuelling. It was a terrible feeling to waste the race for such a silly reason."

Briatore's comments are unknown, but probably unprintable.

10. THREE WORKS JAGUARS COLLIDE

Having two of your cars crashing into each other is bad enough. Having three just seems ridiculous, particularly at the start of a sportscar race sponsored by your main backer.

With no works Porsche or Lancia opposition, Tom Walkinshaw's Silk Cut Jaguar squad should easily have won the Trofeo Silk Cut at Jerez in 1986.

It needed to as well, with drivers Derek Warwick and Eddie Cheever trailing Porsche's Hans Stuck/Derek Bell pairing in the points with just four rounds to go.

The three XJR-6s looked good, heading in to the first corner 1-2-3, but Warwick tried to go around the outside of Gianfranco Brancatelli. Contact was made that somehow sent all three off the road.

Warwick eventually dug himself out of the gravel to finish third, but privateer Porsches finished first and second and Derek got the blame.

"It was clearly my fault, but how dare they try and be ahead of me!" jokes Warwick today.

"As I was digging I was thinking 'Tom is not going to be happy with me'.

"He did rule with an iron fist and had an ability to frighten even me. But I was the only Jaguar that finished so God knows who was in the wrong!

"When I finished my stint I got out and hid because I knew Tom would be after me. He gave me the biggest rollicking of my life once the race was over."

9. NEAL BREAKS RACING'S GOLDEN RULE

It is the number one black mark in motorsport: do not take your team-mate off.

Especially when you are running one and two in a race. And even more especially when your biggest rival is able to come through and win the race as a result.

British Touring Car Championship, race two, Oulton Park, 2011. From pole, Gordon Shedden led the pack on a greasy track and, on lap 13, his Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R team-mate Matt Neal slotted in to second place. Things were perfectly set up for a dream result.

And then Neal seemed to lose his mind.

He decided to take a optimistic look down the inside of Shedden going into the final corner, Lodge, but cannoned into the side of the Scotsman in the slippery conditions and both went skittering through the gravel.

Neal didn't get out, Shedden did for sixth place. Worst of all, it allowed Jason Plato to zoom through and grab the victory in his Chevrolet.

It was far from the first time team-mates had clashed in the BTCC.

Toyotas seem to have a magnetic attraction after the sister cars of Andy Rouse and Will Hoy took themselves out of a race at Brands Hatch in 1992 and the Japanese firm's cars, in the hands of Will Hoy and Julian Bailey, collided in the British GP support race in '93.

8. LE MANS SERIES PAUL RICARD CHAOS

As bad race control decisions go, the start procedure for the 2011 Le Mans Series Six Hours of Le Castellet takes some beating.

Just a year after officials were forced to exceed the Le Mans Series' maximum distance of 1000km by 50 per cent - invoking a little-known double-points rule when caught out by a lack of safety cars during the fast circuit's eight-hour race - officialdom was again called into question when the wrong button was pressed in race control at the start of the race.

Race control was not happy with the way the cars were lined up out of the last corner, with the field having split into two groups.

Unfortunately, the 'start' button was pressed rather than the 'abort start' button, the lights went off and only the cars at the front could see that the safety car was still out there, resulting in mayhem.

Five cars were heavily damaged, four of which just happened to be GT Pro class Porsche 911s.

7. SENNA'S MONACO MISHAP

Not many blunder lists contain a man many consider to be the best Formula 1 driver of all time - Ayrton Senna - but in this case it's well deserved.

Senna's prowess in Monaco was unbelievable. Anyone who has taken the time to watch an onboard of him caressing a Marlboro-liveried McLaren around the circuit will know that. And the six wins at the circuit - more than any other F1 driver - backs up the point.

However in 1988, the Brazilian dropped the ball. Leading by nearly a minute and on another planet to anybody else in the race, he went into the wall at Portier and broke the car.

He went straight back to his nearby flat and wouldn't be drawn out for love nor money by Ron Dennis.

Dennis had been on the radio for Senna to back off not long before the crash, but the headstrong Senna felt the need to respond to Alain Prost's fastest lap and paid the price.

6. CELEBRATING BEFORE THE FLAG

It's one of the fundamental rules in sport. Don't celebrate too early, and you will have no doubt seen the best example of this occurrence in international motorsport.

Enter Bjorn Wirdheim.

After winning the first International Formula 3000 race of the 2003 season, Swede Wirdheim finished second in the next two rounds and was seemingly on cruise control towards the title.

In Monaco the Swede was once again the man to beat.

As he reached the famous Monte Carlo pitwall on the last lap, he slowed right down to wave to his Arden mechanics in celebration of his achievement. Only he hadn't crossed the line.

Nicolas Kiesa couldn't believe his luck as he cruised past Wirdheim - who realised what was happening all too late and lit up his rears in pursuit.

"I saw Bjorn drive over to the pitwall and wave at the team, and I thought I would do the same thing," remembers Kiesa.

"I didn't back off much as I waved. I thought it was a little strange that I was getting the chequered flag while Bjorn was behind me.

"I asked where I had finished on the radio, but no one said anything. I could see on the big screen that the team was cheering like mad, but I thought that was for second.

"Then I came to Casino and I could see there were some Danish guys trying to climb the fence with a flag. Then I saw another big screen with my name on top and I realised that I had won."

A few hundred yards away from the finish, Wirdheim had thrown away victory in the one F3000 race that really mattered.

"I didn't really speak to him after the race," says Kiesa.

"He was just swearing and saying 'I can't believe this, I can't believe this'. Every time we got near each other we didn't have an actual conversation because he was busy being gutted!"

5. HILDERBRAND GIVES WHELDON SECOND INDY WIN

American crashes, Brit wins; the perfect story for many UK motorsport fans.

It happened in 2011. JR Hildebrand was leading the Indianapolis 500, America's biggest race. Behind, Dan Wheldon was beaten. Defeated.

And then, the British miracle.

On the last lap, Hildebrand was distracted by a backmarker. He slid off into the wall at Turn 4 and took off the whole right-hand front of his car.

Half destroyed, his National Guard-sponsored Panther Racing car slid across the finish line rubbing up against the wall.

It's even more of a tragedy when you consider that it would have been JR's first IndyCar win. In six races up until that point his best finish was 10th. Nightmare.

It handed the extremely popular Wheldon took his second 500 win.

He died later that year after a crash in the final round at Las Vegas, and is sorely missed by the motorsport community.

4. HAMILTON'S TWO PITLANE BLUNDERS

Lewis Hamilton burst into F1 in 2007, finishing in the top three nine consecutive times to open his career with McLaren.

Having won in Japan, he had a good points lead entering the penultimate round in China.

The race started in the wet, but as the track began to dry Hamilton's tyres started going off.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen passed him on the circuit and McLaren - which had kept Hamilton out initially - finally gave the call for him to pit.

The pit entrance at the Shanghai circuit is a tight left-hander, and Hamilton slid off into the gravel.

The Brit's title favourite status was immediately lost, and we all know what happened in the final round of the season.

After Hamilton's engine cut out, Raikkonen won in Brazil to snatch the championship.

Hamilton would get some sort of 'revenge' on Raikkonen, as another blunder a year later caused him to pile into the back of the Finn in the Canadian GP pitlane.

The Brit didn't see the red light and drove into Kimi, ending their races.

3. F1's AMERICAN FARCE

Rarely has a blunder caused such an outcry as the 2005 US Grand Prix did.

'Indygate' as it was labelled by some, began in Friday practice when Ralf Schumacher's Toyota - on Michelin tyres - speared into the wall.

After some investigation and more instances of Michelin runners crashing, the French firm stated that because of the increase in speed on the banking, its tyres were only safe for 10 laps.

With tyre changes banned for the 2005 season, Michelin tried desperately to find a compromise, which boiled down to putting a chicane in at Turn 13 to slow the cars.

A meeting was held on the morning of the race with the FIA's Max Mosley, Bernie Ecclestone and most of the team principals, but Ferrari's Jean Todt claimed he wasn't consulted and, even if he had been, he would have refused, so Michelin was left with no choice.

It had to pull out. The Michelin teams were Toyota (on pole), BAR, McLaren, Red Bull, Sauber, Williams and Renault. They all completed the parade lap in order to officially take part in the event and avoid any punishment from the FIA, before pitting instead of taking the grid.

Michael Schumacher led Rubens Barrichello to the victory for Ferrari, while Jordan duo Tiago Monteiro and Narain Karthikeyan, and Minardi drivers Christijan Albers and Patrick Friesacher followed.

Not only did it disappoint fans and spectators, the scandal came at an awful time when F1 was struggling to be accepted by US fans.

This really put the nail in the coffin for F1 in America until Austin restarted the US GP in 2012.

Such was the extent of the outcry at Indy in 2005 that SWAT teams were called to deal with rebelling crowds.

2. MERCEDES FLY HIGH AT LE MANS

It's fair to say that Mercedes has had some of its worst moments at Le Mans, and the mighty CLR provided another difficult French visit.

Mercedes dominated the 1998 FIA GT Championship, winning all 10 rounds with its CLK machines, but rule changes for the series effectively banned the high-powered GT1 machines.

But Mercedes wasn't done. Double retirement at Le Mans that year stood as the one blot on its record.

Keen to retain the GT1s, Le Mans organiser the ACO created the LMGTP class for prototypes, and Mercedes devised the radical CLR for 1999.

With none of the homologation rules needed for FIA GT, Mercedes designed the car purely with the La Sarthe circuit in mind.

The CLR boasted 600bhp and a radically reworked aero package designed to cut through the air and maximise top speed.

Mercedes recruited a star driver line-up, with Mark Webber/Jean-Marc Gounon/Marcel Tiemann sharing one car, Christophe Bouchut/Nick Heidfeld/Peter Dumbreck in the second and Bernd Schneider/Franck Lagorce/Pedro Lamy in the third.

All looked rosy, until the CLRs struggled on the pre-event test day. Far worse was to come at Le Mans itself though.

Webber flipped his car on the run to Indianapolis in qualifying but the shunt went unseen due to a lack of cameras in the area.

Mercedes continued with its programme and shipped a new chassis to Le Mans, putting the incident down as a blip.

There was no hiding though when Webber's car did the same thing the next day, this time on the Mulsanne Straight.

Webber was unhurt and Mercedes, keen to not withdraw the cars, fitted extra dive-planes around the nose in an effort to stop air getting under the ultra-sleek body and flipping it.

Two cars started the race but it wasn't long before Dumbreck took off. This time his car flew into the trees on live TV.

The Scotsman miraculously emerged uninjured despite a trunk piercing the tub close to his seat.

Faced with public outcry and some serious questions, Mercedes withdrew the final car and has not returned to Le Mans since.

1. RENAULT'S SINGAPORE SLING

The true magnitude of a blunder is defined by its fallout. And the Renault team's infamous decision to 'fix' the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix by ordering Nelson Piquet Jr to crash and trigger a safety car that played into Fernando Alonso's hands - exposed the following year - had devastating consequences.

Piquet's grand prix career was effectively ended, Renault pulled its works team from F1 (although it retained the name for a few more years) and the reputations of Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds were damaged.

Felipe Massa argues it cost him the world championship...

The seeds were sown in the second stage of qualifying, when Alonso parked up with a fuelling problem. This was a massive blow to Renault because Alonso had set the pace in Saturday morning practice and was a legitimate pole threat.

Amid rumours about Renault's ongoing participation in F1, it desperately needed a first win since 2006.

This explains why Briatore and Symonds - deemed by the FIA to be responsible for the plan - later ordered Piquet to crash on the 14th lap of the race.

Then, Alonso was last having started the race on a three-stop strategy and already taken on fuel once. The usual strategy for an out-of-position starting position would have been to have a long first stint.

Piquet slung the rear end of his Renault sideways at the exit of the medium-to-low speed Turn 17 left-hander, firing it heavily into the inside wall.

The impact was heavier than the team had planned, but it was effective and led to the safety car being deployed.

This malevolent blunder was just one of two that had serious consequences, for another was to follow once the pits had opened under the safety car.

Massa, leading after a mighty qualifying lap gave him pole by over six tenths of a second, had the race in his pocket.

But when he stopped under the safety car, things went disastrously wrong. And it was all thanks to traffic lights.

Ferrari's relatively new system for timing the release of its cars at the end of a stop, which was reckoned to be worth a good tenth of a second thanks to removing the physical act of a mechanic lifting a lollipop board, went wrong.

It was designed to hold the driver on red, then switch to amber when the refuelling rig was a second away from completing the delivery of its payload before switching to green for go.

Because of the crowded pitlane, with 10 cars stopping, it was switched to manual to avoid releasing Massa into the path of oncoming traffic.

An error was made, with the team member operating it deeming the pitlane clear but no failsafe for the fact the fuel had yet to be delivered was involved.

Off Massa charged, dragging the fuel hose with him, knocking mechanics flying and ruining his race.

Massa parked up at the end of the pitlane, with his crew eventually catching up with him and sending him back out to finish a pointless 13th, while title rival Lewis Hamilton was third, two places behind winner Alonso.

You can't blame Massa for feeling aggrieved to this day.

"It's really frustrating because it is not part of racing, it is not part of the rules," is Massa's verdict. "That was the most significant race in me losing the championship.

"With what happened in that race, I cannot believe the federation was able to leave it like that. They needed to cancel the race because the result was different [to what it should have been].

"We know how political our world is. Sometimes things happen that are not right."

He has a point. Had the fuel hose blunder not happened, Massa would definitely have scored enough points to have made Hamilton's famous championship-winning pass on Timo Glock in the season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix irrelevant.

As for Piquet - who at the time was a 23-year-old with his career on the line - while he has to take responsibility for the fact he crashed deliberately, there are some grounds for sympathy.

"No one has been punished more than I have," said Piquet, who escaped formal penalty from the FIA.

"I was in a difficult position at the time and the renegotiation of my contract was in play if I didn't accept the strategy."

See the special Christmas double issue of Motorsport News for more big features, including:

- The 60 defining moments of 2015
- F1 season review
- Interview with BTCC champion Gordon Shedden
- BTCC driver Tom Ingram's crazy Christmas track test

And much, much more

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