Fernando Alonso suffered a very unusual DRS failure in Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix. The DRS flap got stuck in the open position and way above the 50mm limit. The cause seemed to have been the stopper that sits in the middle part of the rear wing. This little device stops the wing from opening above the 50mm limit. In Ferrari’s case the stopper seemed to have failed, not once but twice. This resulted in Alonso coming into the pits twice in as many laps to have the flap reset. The question is, why didn’t the team tell him he should not use it? It was clearly broken and the chances that the team could just whack it back into position and for it to be working again were very slim.

This was the second time this season where Ferrari have made strategic blunders. The first being the incident he had with Vettel in the Malaysian Grand Prix where he had his front wing damaged. Instead of bringing him in and changing the wing, Ferrari chose to keep him out. This ultimately caused his exit from the race.

In Bahrain he was still able to drive with the rear wing open. This, in itself, is something to behold. It’s a small wonder he wasn’t sent spinning off the track. He did complain of a lack of grip but he had thought the tyres were going off.

Nevertheless he managed to fight his way back up the field and finished in 8th place. Had he not come into the pits for the second time he could have finished much higher up the field. With hindsight it’s easy to say that, but such is the sport of Formula 1. The only thing predictable about Formula 1, is that it is unpredictable.