Fernando Alonso reveals reason for bizarre steering wheel detachment issue in second Bahrain practice

Having suffered a bizarre steering wheel detachment issue in second Bahrain practice, two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso has revealed that the entire steering wheel came undone unexpectedly.

Fernando Alonso endured a difficult opening day at the Bahrain grand Prix. The Spaniard was forced to hand over his car to Aston Martin test and reserve driver Felipe Drugovich as part of the sporting rule that require every driver to vacate their seat in a practice session two times during the season.

As soon as Alonso finally got behind the wheel of his AMR25, he encountered a strange issue, as the steering wheel detached itself from his Aston Martin Formula 1 car.

The Spaniard was braking for the final corner at Sakhir track when the steering wheel suddenly came off, sending him straight onto the run-off. While the Madrid-born driver was able to push his steering wheel back into its position, he was forced to crawl back into the pits where his mechanics started to investigate his car.

Alonso needed to get out of his car while his mechanics replaced several parts. Reflecting on the issues, Alonso revealed that his dashboard had gone blank before the entire steering wheel came undone.

“The car [was] not working, and I could not shift gears at one point. I had a dash off. I could not communicate with the team either and in the last corner, the wheel was off. So yeah, we realised that maybe the steering column of the wheel or something had a problem.

“The mechanics quickly changed the parts and everything was fine. A moment there, but thanks to everyone in the garage to fix it quite fast."

Having missed the opening session, Alonso was eager to rack up mileage with his AMR25 in the second one-hour session which was the more representative practice given that the qualifying and the race will take place in similar conditions.

However, the technical issue meant that the Spaniard spent the majority of the session in the garage as Aston Martin's mechanics needed to replace the faulty steering wheel with a fresh one.

When the Spaniard finally was able to get out on to the Bahrain International Circuit, he struggled for pace, ended up the session in 15th place while his team-mate Lance Stroll finished further behind in P19.

The two-time F1 champion conceded the AMR25 simply lacks the pace to run competitively, but he also revealed that it did not come as a surprise as Aston Martin had expected the Bahrain track's low-speed corners to expose the car's weaknesses.

“I think it's going to be a tough weekend, unfortunately, we seem not to have the pace before coming here. The characteristics of Bahrain was a little bit of a concern for us, for our package, and yeah, probably we confirm today that we are not competitive.

"It's going to be a tough weekend, but we will try to learn. We will try to push, and we are not giving up," Alonso explained.