It is every F1 team’s worst nightmare for its drivers to crash, but it comes as Lewis Hamilton and George Russell make their final entry into the F1 ‘Hall of Shame’. Congratulations, you’ve just earned yourself the chance to drive for an F1 team, and to celebrate, they’ve given you a thick book of team principles to read before driving.
Page 1, Chapter 1. “Under no circumstances should you bump into your teammate.” It’s a golden rule in motorsport that has sometimes become fool’s gold after one teammate or another takes another car and leads to awkward questions back in the garage. This is perhaps understandable. Two racers competing in Uber with the same equipment race in fun laps against 18 others who are all trying to do the same thing: win.
Eventually you meet something, and the law of averages dictates that every now and then it’s your teammate – as Lewis Hamilton and George Russell found out on the opening lap in Qatar, when Hamilton tried to send it out of Turn 1 to management. He got it wrong on the slimmest of margins and it was absolute agony for Mercedes. This led RacingNews365 to think that he had come up with some of the most famous teammate collisions at a Grand Prix, a far cry from the infamous teammate crash in F1 history.
It is every F1 team’s worst nightmare for its drivers to crash, but it comes as Lewis Hamilton and George Russell make their final entry into the F1 ‘Hall of Shame’. Congratulations, you’ve just earned yourself the chance to drive with a Formula 1 team, and to celebrate, they’ve given you a thick book of team principles to read before driving. Page 1, Chapter 1. “Under no circumstances should you bump into your teammate.” It’s a golden rule in motorsport that has sometimes become fool’s gold after one teammate or another takes another car and leads to awkward questions back in the garage.
This is perhaps understandable. Two racers competing in Uber with the same equipment race in fun laps against 18 others who are all trying to do the same thing: win. Eventually you meet something, and the law of averages dictates that every now and then it’s your teammate – as Lewis Hamilton and George Russell found out on the opening lap in Qatar, when Hamilton tried to send it out of Turn 1 to management.
He got it wrong on the slimmest of margins and it was absolute agony for Mercedes. To come up with some of the most famous collisions between teammates in Grand Prix racing, which is by no means a definitive list. Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost – Japan 1989 The mother and father of collisions of F1 teammates is perhaps the most famous accident in the history of the World Series. Coming into Suzuka, Ayrton Senna had to win the final two races of the season to retain his crown, while a finish by the Brazilian would give arch-rival Alain Prost a third crown. After putting the car into the race instead of qualifying, Prost took the advantage and led, but Senna cut into the lead. On lap 47, at the final chicane, Senna was in position to jump the inside, but Prost closed the door firmly. Send a message to the contact and the Frenchman will immediately back off.
Senna continued and got real, but fell at the start of the push and returned to the track after cutting the chicane. Difficult. This laid the seeds for the more famous Turn 1 incident 12 months later, but by then Prost had firmly affixed his sticker to the #1 Ferrari.
Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber – Turkey 2010 This incident may be somewhat overshadowed by the Malaysian Multi-21 saga in 2013, but somehow the duo did not crash that day in Sepang, so we go back three years to the end of the relationship. Mark Webber was leading in Turkey as Sebastian Vettel approached slowly and made a move on lap 40 after a spin back on the straight. Vettel moved slowly past Webber after the pass, resulting in right-rear left-front contact and the German’s confusion to run ahead of Hamilton. Vettel was there and firmly blamed Webber’s door, despite video footage suggesting otherwise. Helmut Marko was firmly in Vettel’s camp and blamed Webber.
The Red Bull man retired on the spot, while Webber finished third behind Hamilton and Jenson Button in a memorable cycling one-two finish to the race. Speaking of which… Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton – Canada 2011 In the opening laps of a wet 2011 visit to Montreal, Hamilton pounced on Webber, passed Michael Schumacher and Button before colliding with his McLaren teammate on the pit lane. Hamilton ran better than Button in the final chicane – both drivers moved to the left. Hamilton clipped the wall, breaking his suspension and leaving him behind on lap 7. About four hours later, Button passed Vettel on the final lap after an impressive race with almost two hours of rain and six pit stops.
British driver. All it took for Button was Vettel’s mistake to lead by half a lap, but it was the right half lap as he won F1’s longest ever Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg – 2014-2016 First we have Nico Rosberg’s clumsy move in 2014 at Les Combes in Belgium, trying to hang W05 leader Hamilton on the outside. Look at one broken front wing, one flat Hamilton tire and Toto Wolff ready to explode.
Hamilton retired and Rosberg was second. Although it was unexpected, their destruction in Spain 2016 was not. Excitement grew after a bad start during the first races.
