Sebastian Vettel Has Had An Embarrassing Public Demo Day Crash

With nothing to do but entertain the crowds around a tight, narrow demo circuit in Milan, Sebastian Vettel neatly demonstrated that F1 cars are always tricky beasts

Matt Kimberley

30 Aug 2018

The wonderful thing about F1 demo days is that you can take it easy and keep the crowds happy without crashing. Can someone tell Sebastian Vettel?

The unfortunate German four-time world champion was primed to turn on the style for the passionate crowds at the Milan F1 Fan Festival. What he actually did was crash into a barrier and break his old SF71H’s nose. Bit embarrassing, really.

Already did it yesterday! Take a look! pic.twitter.com/uKW6NVudFk
— Joshua Burch (@JoshuaBurchF1) August 30, 2018

Reports suggest Vettel was for some reason using his teammate Kimi Raikkonen’s steering wheel, which is configured differently with the clutch on the other side. While attempting to negotiate a bizarrely tight and narrow bend in front of the assembled masses Vettel reached for the clutch… and grabbed a whole handful of nothing useful. He promptly understeered into the barrier.

To add insult to injury, a bright spark on Twitter has overlaid Vettel’s post-crash radio message from this year’s German grand prix over footage of the new impact. It definitely earns a giggle. Of course, Vettel isn’t the first F1 driver to make a bit of a fool of himself at a public demo day. Check out this list of hall-of-famers…