The FIA has opened an investigation into how Fernando Alonso’s steering wheel fell off in his hands during practice in Bahrain.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Luca di Montezemolo, the former Ferrari president whose involvement in F1 dates back to the early 70s, told Sky Italia in Bahrain.
Video footage shows the Aston Martin driver grappling with a malfunctioning steering wheel display before the entire wheel detached from the car completely.
“It wasn’t fitting properly on the column,” Alonso explained afterwards. “The mechanics quickly changed the parts and I was able to run again.”
The incident coincides with a dismal era of performance for the Silverstone-based team, whose decline since early 2023 has been stark.
“It could be a long season,” the 43-year-old, who will get to race the first Adrian Newey-penned Aston Martin next year, said in Bahrain.
Spanish commentator Antonio Lobato said the steering wheel incident sums up the team’s current situation. “Brutal,” he said on DAZN. “A skinny dog is all fleas.”
Given the seriousness of steering wheels falling off at speed, the FIA has demanded that Aston Martin engineers provide a detailed report as to what happened, according to Sky Italia.
“A sanction cannot be ruled out,” the broadcaster explained, “both in the case of a technical problem, which would be very serious, or in the case of a simple attempt by Alonso to reset.”
