10 Of The Most Ridiculous Motorsport Moments From 2017

People complain that F1 drivers these days are emotionless PR robots, but that simply isn’t true. Well, it’s definitely not true of Kevin Magnussen anyway!

When he was told by Nico Hulkenberg that he was “the most unsporting driver” after an incident in the Hungarian Grand Prix, K-Mag came back with a beautifully crafted retort - “suck my balls, mate”. An instant classic.

Motorsport is safer than it’s ever been, but sometimes things still slip through the net. During practice for a World Touring Car race at the Vila Real circuit in Portugal, the brakes on Tom Coronel’s Chevrolet Cruze failed. But instead of hitting a barrier, his car went through a completely unguarded runoff area and smashed into a fire recovery van with some serious force. Thankfully no-one was hurt - it could have been so much worse.

When Palmer found out he'd got the sack by reading it online

Jolyon Palmer wasn’t having a great season for Renault in F1 this year and knew his seat was at risk. Sure enough, the team announced that Carlos Sainz Jr. would be replacing him in 2018, but seemingly forgot to tell Jolyon about it. The first he knew of it was when he read it on Autosport and only later had it confirmed by the team.

That’s pretty embarrassing, but it gets worse: Palmer’s performances were so meh that Sainz actually ended up replacing him before the season was even over. Poor Jolyon.

One of the scariest things to happen all year came during a practice session for a German Formula 4 race at Oschersleben.

Sophia Floersch rounded a corner to find a course car crossing the road right in front of her, only narrowly avoiding what could have been an utterly horrendous accident.

To say it was a mistake by the organisers would be an understatement, so of course their first priority was to look at why it happened and ensure it couldn’t happen again - oh wait, no it wasn’t. Instead they hurriedly slapped Sophia with a €5000 fine for uploading the video without permission…

There’ve been some truly epic saves in motorsport this year, but this one by Kenan Dole in the VAG Trophy at Brands Hatch has to be the most spectacular.

He lost it on the exit of Paddock Hill Bend and drifted his way across the circuit all the way up to Druids before finally getting his Golf back under control.

You've announced WHO as your reserve driver?!

Being a reserve driver isn’t the most exciting job for a racer because chances are you’re never going to be needed. Formula E team DS Virgin Racing took advantage of this for the New York ePrix and pulled a bit of a PR stunt by announcing none other than Sir Richard Branson as its official reserve driver.

That meant that if either Sam Bird or Alex Lynn couldn’t race for some reason, Branson would (theoretically) be the one to jump in and substitute for them. In the end, that situation didn’t arise - luckily for the team, but not so luckily for us because let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want to have seen Branson be a racing driver?!

The race with no finishers

That’s right, a Formula 4 race in Malaysia saw the bizarre situation of having nobody reach the end after a fuelling mix-up rendered all the cars unable to complete the nine-lap distance in what has to be one of the most surreal races of recent times.

Drivers started coasting to a halt a couple of laps from the end, and on the last lap the sole remaining car conked out behind the safety car, leaving the person waving the chequered flag with an unexpected bit of time off.

When Fernando Alonso drove so fast his car got confused

Fernando Alonso and McLaren endured a third consecutive season of being hamstrung by unreliable and underpowered Honda engines. It was one embarrassment after another and at Spa, perhaps the most ridiculous ‘failure’ of all happened.

Fernando was trying to make it through to the final part of qualifying when his car lost power, and he had to abandon his lap. The thing is, his car didn’t actually have a problem. In his efforts to set a quick lap Fernando had taken the fast left-hander at Pouhon flat out for the first time. Because of that, the engine management system didn’t realise he’d taken the corner and therefore didn’t deploy the electrical energy it was supposed to.

Yup, the car went wrong because Fernando drove too well. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Macau is a bonkers place to go motor racing but we’re really glad they do because the racing is brilliant. Thanks to the narrow, blind corners there’s usually one or two sizeable pile-ups every year too, but in 2017 the GT field really outdid itself.

Dani Juncadella was running fourth when he lost it, triggering this expensive 16-car incident which wiped out most of the field and caused the race to be stopped.

Drivers fighting in motorsport isn’t exactly uncommon (especially in Nascar) and usually it’s little more than a bit of pushing and shoving, or the odd punch or two being thrown. What you don’t expect to see is someone being pinned down, repeatedly punched in the helmet (y tho) and then choked before security break it up.

That’s exactly what happened towards the end of the 500 Milhas karting event between Tuka Rocha and Rodrigo Dantas, which unsurprisingly ended up with both teams being disqualified from the race.

Is your favourite ‘WTF’ motorsport moment of 2017 not on the list? Post it in the comments below!