Formula 1 is a complex series where hundreds of factors can influence the race start, the on-track action and the final result. As such, there are hundreds of things that can also go wrong in a grand prix.
Case in point, a freak accident this weekend saw a humble chunk of gravel ruin Nico Hulkenberg’s race at the Barcelona Grand Prix. The German was racing in the points – on track to score his first of the season – when gravel kicked up by Liam Lawson ahead managed to strike the kill switch on his car.
This immediately shut off the engine and left the German to coast into the pits and retire from the race. Whether you believe it was perfect aim from Lawson or bad luck on Hulkenberg’s part, the incident is just the latest in a long line of shocking, surprising and strange DNFs in F1 history.
1953 Argentina Grand Prix: Crowd control
Ahead of the first world championship race in Argentina, president Juan Peron’s decided to allow free access to the Autodromo Galvez in Buenos Aires. The result, unsurprisingly, was an excessive number of spectators crowding the track when the lights went out.
On lap 31 of the race, one of those spectators made their way onto the track, forcing Giuseppe Farina to swerve out of the way of the onlooker. Unfortunately, in doing so, Farina lost control of his Ferrari and crashed into the crowd, killing 13 spectators.
1970 Mexico Grand Prix: Four-legged friend
These days, Formula 1 drivers only really have to worry about wildlife when the circus rolls into Montreal, where groundhogs are a common problem on the track. In the past, however, deer have been spotted on track in Austria, monitor lizards in Singapore and wild dogs in Mexico.
In 1970, one of those stray dogs found its way onto the track at the Mexican Grand Prix, which had already faced crowd control concerns before the event even began. The animal breached the Mexico City track and was hit by the Tyrrell-Ford of Jackie Stewart, who had qualified in second for the race. The crash caused suspension damage to Stewart’s car and ended his race, while the dog died as a result of the collision.
1977 German Grand Prix: Did not qualify, did not finish
At the 1977 German Grand Prix, Penske Ford racer Hans Heyer had a rather unceremonious retirement from his debut F1 race after just nine laps. His exit from the race was blamed on gearbox issues, which isn’t all too surprising or shocking.
However, on his retirement from the grand prix, race organisers discovered that he had taken part in the event illegally and subsequently disqualified him from the race. His illegal participation came as Heyer had failed to qualify for the event, but still started the Hockenheimring race from the pitlane. After the discovery of his illegal participation, Heyer became the only racer to not qualify, not finish and be disqualified from a single race.
1998 Italian Grand Prix: Spanner in the works
The 1998 Italian Grand Prix might be remembered as a Ferrari 1-2 led by Michael Schumacher, but it was also the scene of a bizarre retirement for Sauber driver Johnny Herbert.
The Briton qualified 15th for the Monza race, seven places and almost a second off the pace of his team-mate Jean Alesi. In the race, Herbert had a pretty uneventful start, but disaster struck on lap 12. A spanner from one of his engineers had been left in the cockpit, and worked its way under the pedals of the Sauber C17. The rogue tool left Herbert without much control of his car, and he ended up in the gravel and out of the race.
1999 Japanese Grand Prix: What’s the point?
Three years after claiming the Formula 1 crown, Damon Hill was struggling with midfield machinery and having a tough time at Jordon. This reached a head at the 1999 Japanese Grand prix, his 115th and final race in F1.
After an unexpected trip across the grass in Suzuka, Hill pulled into the pits for new tyres, fuel and a new nose before heading back out onto the track. Five laps later, he returned to the pits and climbed out of his car. After exiting the race, he said there was “was too little to gain and too much to lose in carrying on”. After this, he walked away from the championship for good.
2018 Australian Grand Prix: Litter bug
Formula 1 cars are highly-strung machines that require optimum conditions to perform at their best, meaning they can be unstuck by everything from gravel to sandwich bags. Yes, that’s right, a plastic sandwich bag was the downfall of Williams in 2018.
At the season-opener in Australia, Russian racer Sergey Sirotkin qualified 19th for his F1 debut. However, his race was cut short as a sandwich bag got stuck in his brake duct after just a handful of laps. The sandwich wrapper caused his brakes to overheat and fail, which forced the Russian out of the race after four laps.
2021 Monaco Grand Prix: Oh nuts
By the 2020s, Formula 1 cars had got incredibly reliable and mechanical retirements were becoming few and far between. As such, it wasn’t a car failure that led Valtteri Bottas to retire from the Monaco Grand Prix, and rather a catastrophic collapse of a wheel nut.
When the Finn peeled into the pits from second place, he was expecting a beautifully-choreographed stop from his team. However, the wheel gun stripped the thread from the nut holding on his front right rim, and the team had no way of removing it. Try as they might, the wheel didn’t come off – and it wasn’t removed until the car was shipped back to the factory in Brackley long after Bottas was forced to retire from the race.
2022 Australian Grand Prix: Budget parts
Carbon fibre, titanium, gold leaf. These are the kinds of exotic, expensive materials that we’re familiar with in Formula 1. However, sometimes it’s the simplest, most humble components that can bring down a multi-million-dollar race car.
Case in point, when Fernando Alonso retired from the 2022 Australian Grand Prix, he blamed the exit on a failed seal, which would have cost pennies to replace. At the time, team boss Otmar Szafnauer confirmed that a failed o-ring seal led to an oil leak, which caused a drop in oil pressure and an engine failure.
2025 Italian Grand Prix: This rocks
Hulkenberg isn’t the only driver to be forced out of a race due to rogue chunks of gravel flying through the air, as Alonso was another driver to fall foul of a rock strike.
In the 2025 Italian Grand Prix, when driving for Aston Martin, Alonso’s AMR25 was struck by rocks kicked up by an incident on the first lap of the Monza race. The Spaniard initially carried on, but the impact weakened the front suspension of his race car. Eventually, on lap 24, he was forced out of the race as the damage from the rocks was found to be terminal.
2026 Barcelona Grand Prix: Lights, Camera, Action
Another freak accident at the 2026 Barcelona Grand Prix hit Williams racer Alex Albon. The Thai driver had a rough weekend, struggling through practice and failing to make it out of Q1 in qualifying. His race was then hampered when the on-board camera mounted to the top of his FW48 worked loose during the race and he was forced into the pits.
When asked about the incident by F1TV, Albon responded: “I think it was one of your cameras. We boxed. Honestly, we used that opportunity to test. We were out of the race anyway, so lucky for you it didn’t change too much.”
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