If the broken Mumm's champagne bottle that Fernando Alonso's mechanic failed to catch under the Shanghai podium summed up Renault's weekend in China, then perhaps it also signalled the end of the team's run of bad luck.
It seemed instead to transfer to Ferrari, and specifically on race day. As crew members climbed through gaps in the Suzuka pit wall debris fencing to go to the grid, Felipe Massa's engineer Rob Smedley failed to spot that there were solid metal crossbars at the top of the openings. He took a nasty blow to the head, and almost knocked himself out.
So just minutes before the start of the Japanese Grand Prix, a key (and irreplaceable) engineer was not talking to his driver about how the car felt on the way to the grid, but was on his knees as panicking team members fussed around and tried their best to bandage him up. If you believe in omens, this was a pretty clear one for the Scuderia...