Sandwich bag causes Sirotkin DNF on F1 debut

Sergey Sirotkin’s Formula 1 debut lasted just three full laps after a sandwich bag blew onto the track and got caught in his Williams car, ultimately causing him to suffer a brake failure that resulted in retirement from the race.

Sirotkin lined up 19th for his first F1 start after a difficult maiden qualifying session, and held position through the opening few laps.

However, the Russian’s race would go no further than Lap 4, with TV cameras showing the Williams being parked in the run-off area at Turn 16.

Speaking to reporters after the race, Sirotkin revealed that a loose sandwich bag had got caught in his right-rear brake duct, causing his car to overheat and ultimately fail.

“You would not believe how clever it was what happened: there was a plastic sandwich bag that went into the rear-right brake duct, which was lap three or lap four I suppose,” Sirotkin said.

“That caused massive overheating which caused massive temperature spikes and it destroyed all the brakes. At some point I lost the pedal completely - I was lucky there was no wall or nothing there, so the car is still in one piece but I lost the car straight [on].”

Sirotkin did not mince his words when looking back on Williams’ weekend, having struggled through both qualifying and the race on Sunday.

“To be honest it’s been a very tough weekend. I’ve been around a little while and up to now it all went exactly as I was pretty much expecting to be going,” Sirotkin said.

“But this weekend was really tough. It was really something out of what usually happens that we didn’t, or I didn’t, expect. It’s really tough.

“I’m really not happy with the weekend. Today I really hoped for a nice clean race to really learn and build some confidence of what happened, but I could not even do this.

“It’s a shame, and a tough moment. But the best thing we can do is forget it, learn it and get the experience from it.”