Crashes and Craziness: The Most Controversial Moments In F1 History

In any sport, there is always controversies and craziness around teams and sportsperson's actions; F1 is no exception to this. From Michael Schumacher's Rascasse antics and Piquet Jr deliberately crashing, to only 6 cars racing at the 2005 US GP and the 1982 drivers strike, there are plenty of controversial moments to choose from.

1976 Hunt and the British Grand Prix

The 1976 British GP was a controversial one, often hailed one of James Hunt's best wins that never was, the race at Brands Hatch was full of drama.

Niki Lauda had taken pole position only 0.06 seconds ahead of the Hunt. As the race started, Hunt dropped back with Regazzoni zoomed forward to try and take the lead from Lauda. This caused a crash that broke the rear wheel on Lauda's car, resulting in multiple accidents behind them, one of which caught Hunt. The red flags came out and the officials stated that you can only continue the race if you had completed the first lap and were driving in the original car. This caused an issue for Hunt as he had not actually crossed the line and had opted to go through the pits instead making him illegible to restart the race.

The home crowd were less than impressed, chants were started, and they got incredibly restless. Luckily the McLaren team quickly got started on the repairs to his car, so it was ready to race and coupled with the concerns about the crowd's anger, Hunt was allowed to race. He went on to drive beautifully and win the race causing the other teams to protest. Initially, the protest was thrown out by the stewards however it was escalated to the RAC and the FIA. Two months after the race, Hunt was disqualified from the race…..

1982 Drivers Strike

The South African GP of 1982 saw all bar one of the drivers refuse to race in a protest lead by Niki Lauda and Didier Peroni. The field at the time included drivers such as Nelson Piquet, Gilles Villeneuve, Keke Rosberg, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansel. 30 drivers boarded a bus from the track to the Sunnyside Hotel and barricaded themselves in a conference room, turning it into a dorm, to prevent contact from their teams and the authorities.

FISA, F1's governing body at the time, had just proposed new Superlicence terms which effectively made criticising the sport's bosses illegal and that each driver had to sign a contract which would tie them to a given team for a defined period of up to 3 years, leaving them unable to enter contract negotiations with other teams. It was safe to say the drivers were not happy.

Nobody took the track for the Thursday practice session which forced discussions over FISA's new terms. A full strike was avoided, with the race delayed a week and, alongside the court of Arbitration for Sport, the drivers did not have to sign onto the new rules.

This is the one and only time drivers en masse refused to race and was key in the growth of drivers influence on the sport.

1989 and 1990 – Senna vs Prost

Having beaten Prost in the championship during the previous season as teammates at McLaren, 1989 saw Senna behind on the leader board. To win, Senna would have to beat Prost at the Japanese GP. He got off to a terrible start, dropping from P1 to P3 on the opening lap, however with fresh tyres, he was able to catch the Frenchman. At the final chicane, Prost suddenly turned in on Senna, damaging the Brazilian's front wing. Prost was out of the race but somehow Senna recovered and won the race and therefore the Championship. In a shock to many people, Senna was disqualified from the race for using an escape road upon recovering from the incident….. This meant Prost won the Driver's Championship.

A year later, the pair were battling at the same track. Senna was ahead in the Championship but would only win if Prost (now a Ferrari driver) DNF. Senna managed to take both himself and Prost out of the race at the first corner by attempting to squeeze through a gap that just wasn't there. As both cars did not finish the race, Senna won the Championship that year. Despite his denials, many believe that this was revenge for Suzuka the year before.

1997 Schumacher vs Villeneuve

Having turned in on the Williams of Damon Hill back in 1994, which secured himself the Championship by one point, three years later saw another Schumacher battle with a Williams. This time it was Jacques Villeneuve, who he had a one-point lead over the two of them, plus Heinz-Harald, all qualified with the same time but Heinz-Harald set the time first so took pole, with Schumacher in P2 and Villeneuve in P3.

The second round of pits stops at the Circuito de Jerez in Spain had Villeneuve behind the German driver who then tried to put his Williams down the inside of German's Ferrari. Schumacher then turned in on him, as he had done to Hill in 1994, damaging the Ferrari too much to carry on racing. Villeneuve was able to carry on racing however finished 3rd; this was still enough to secure the Canadian the championship that year.

You can watch the move here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T8NFkM6vPY

2002 Austrian GP - Schumacher and Barrichello Swap

Austria 2002 saw an interesting and controversial team order from Ferrari. The team asked Barrichello to effectively hand his win to Schumacher. Initially, he refused however let Schumacher passed on the final corner of the last lap of the race, with him taking the win by less than two tenths of a second; a close call to say the least. It wasn’t subtle either - he clearly pulled to the side, making the move very obvious.

The call came into question for many reasons. Schumacher had already won 4 out of 5 of the races that season so didn’t really need the win for his Championship bid. This was made even more clear when he won the Championship with twice the amount of points as his teammate. Fans were also less than impressed about how the swap happened and that it happened so late in the race.

The podium was met with boos, and Schumacher broke protocol by putting Barrichello on the top spot and handing him the winner trophy. They were both, and the Ferrari team, hit with a significant fine for the protocol breach, however not for the swap.

US Grand Prix 2005

The race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway saw only 6 of the 20 cars compete in the race. Back in 2005, the sport had more than one tyre supplier. Minardi, Ferrari and Jordan used Bridgestone with the rest of the teams used Michelin.

The Michelin tyres came under huge scrutiny after multiple failures, including one which caused Ralf Schumacher to hit a concrete wall at very high speed on the Friday. The company were unable to assure the rest of the drivers and teams that the tyres were safe to race on, without a reduction in speed at Turn 13, otherwise, they would only last 10 laps. Michelin proposed the introduction of a chicane to help with this issue however it was refused as a result of economic and political pressure. This meant the 7 teams who used Michelin as their suppliers all pulled out of the race and it was later reported that they could have been held criminally liable under Indiana state law had they raced. All of the cars completed the parade lap before 14 of the cars retired to the pit lane before the race started. The 6-car race went with the cars pulling up onto the grid where they had qualified, leaving huge gaps. In the end, the podium of Schumacher, Barrichello, and Monteiro was greeted with boos from the crowd. This race holds the record for the fewest starts in an F1 race ever.

2006 Monaco GP and Schumacher's Rascasse Antics

The 2006 season saw Michael Schumacher back in contention for the title after a less successful season the year before. He was battling Fernando Alonso and it was clear the fight was going to be between the two of them for the championship.

In the Monaco GP, Schumacher had put the Ferrari on provisional pole position. Everyone knows how easy it is to accidentally end up in a wall when driving around the narrow streets of Monaco. The driver seemed to use this to his advantage to secure his pole. It appeared he faked running wide as Rascasse. This meant that Alonso would not have the opportunity to improve his lap time as he had to slow down to pass the car, ensuring that Schumacher would be on pole. The incredibly suspicious move caught the eye of the stewards who demoted him to the back of the grid. This would eventually go on to cost him the World Championship that year to Alonso.

You can watch the incident here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B57ZFHnjeUQ

2007 Spygate

One of the biggest team rivalries for the 2007 season was Ferrari and McLaren. The teams were close throughout the season and McLaren needed the advantage that disgruntled Ferrari Chief Mechanic could give them. Nigel Stepney, who was less than pleased at not getting a promotion, was leaking information from Ferrari to the McLaren team. A Ferrari fan then spotted someone copying what appeared to be confidential Ferrari information at a shop in Woking, so reported it to Maranello. It turned out to be the McLaren engineer Mike Coughlan who was doing the photocopying. McLaren was disqualified from the 2007 Constructors Championship and received a $100 million fine with both Coughlan and Stepney being fired. It was not a good look for McLaren to be caught cheating….

2008 Crashgate

Fernando Alonso was looking as though he was going to win the 2008 Singapore GP. The Renault team had pitted Alonso early and were looking to pit him again. They really needed something like a yellow flag to secure the win so did what no one was expecting. They got their other driver, Nelson Piquet Jr, to crash into the wall on purpose…. The team got their yellow flag and Alonso got the win.

Renault got away with it until a disgruntled Piquet Jr, who has been let go from Renault after performing poorly in the 2009 season, decided to spill the beans about what really happened in Singapore. There was outrage internationally at what went on, with Renault being called a disgrace to the sport. The Renault team bosses were both punished; Flavio Briatore was given a lifetime ban from the sport with Pat Fry being given a 5-year ban.

2009 Lie Gate

At the season opener in Australia, newly crowned World Champion Lewis Hamilton got himself into a sticky situation by lying to officials.

The race finished under a safety car due to an incident between Vettel and Kubica. During the final few laps, Jarno Trulli ran off the track behind the safety car which put Hamilton up into 3rd. Hamilton then let him back through, however, post-race, Trulli was given a time penalty for overtaking during the safety car, which is not allowed, putting Hamilton on the podium in P3. Hamilton told the stewards that he had not received any instruction regarding allowing Trulli to regain his track position but did it anyway. However, the stewards found radio messages from McLaren telling him to let Trulli back in front, so he was disqualified from the race for misleading officials.

2010 German Grand Prix "Fernando Is Faster Than You'

In 2002, the FIA announced that 'team orders that could influence the outcome of a race' were banned. This means that teams could not ask their drivers to swap their order in a race. This rule was repealed at the end of the 2010 season however not in time for Ferrari and their 'Fernando is faster than you' radio message to Massa to be legal.

Fernando Alonso was fighting with McLaren and Red Bull for the Drivers' Championship title. At the German GP, Vettel had qualified P1, with Alonso in P2 but at the start, Alonso's teammate Massa overtook both of the cars. Massa led the race until Lap 49 where Alonso was stuck behind him. Alonso had much higher chances for the title and so the team radioed Massa, saying 'Fernando is faster than you, can you confirm that you understood the message'. He let him past as was told 'good boy, now stick behind him. Sorry'.

The story afterwards from Alonso was that Massa had a gearbox problem, however, Massa said that he decided to let Alonso passed because he was slower on the hard tyres. Ferrari's denial made it difficult for the FIA as they couldn't really penalise the team. However, they were given a $100,000 fine on the grounds that they were 'bringing the sport into disrepute.'

2013 Malaysian GP Red Bull's Multi 21

At the 2013 Malaysian GP, the Red Bull team orders were that Webber would come home in P1 and Vettel in P2. However, Vettel whipped around Webber to take the top of the podium and ignored team orders. This caused Webber to tell 'Multi-21, Seb. Multi-21' after the race. This meant that the 2nd car (Webber) should finish ahead of the 1st car (Vettel). This made for a very awkward podium as Vettel tried not to celebrate and Webber just ignored him.

Team Principal Christian Horner agreed that the move was payback for Webber's actions in Brazil which nearly cost Vettel the championship. Webber had squeezed him up against the wall at the start of the race which resulted in him getting turned around by Bruno Senna. Vettel did apologise for the action however the phrase 'Multi 21' will live on in F1 for a long time.

2020 The Pink Mercedes

Drive To Survive fans would have seen the reference made to Racing Point's 2020 'Pink Mercedes' after the car looked very similar to the Mercedes W10. Teams can copy parts, using photos to reverse engineer different bits of the car, however, even the F1 owner said that 'Racing Point took this to another level'.

There were many protests within the paddock, with multiple team principals taking it to the FIA. They did rule on the brake ducts of the car, saying that they were 'designed in large part by Mercedes'. Mercedes admitted that they supplied information regarding the part to the team, however, at the time it was not a listed part; yet a rule change in place for that season included brake ducts being required to be designed from scratch. The team we docked 15 constructor's point and fined £359,000, however we able to carry on racing with the parts until the end of the season.

The other team principals were not happy with the outcome. They argued it was more than the brake duct that was copied; they saw it as the whole concept of the car is incredibly similar to the W10 and that Racing Point would gain an advantage by being allowed to continue to race with the parts and the car as it was.

These are just a few of the many controversies in F1 and there will undoubtedly be more in the years to come!