On April 3, 2016, Sebastian Vettel’s Bahrain Grand Prix ended before it began. The Ferrari driver, due to start third, suffered an engine failure on the formation lap and never took the lights. It was a small but striking statistical break: across his first 160 world championship entries, Bahrain 2016 was the first time Vettel failed to start a Formula 1 race.
Because the 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix turned into such a busy race, Vettel’s disappearance is easy to lose in the wider story. But it stood out at the time. He had qualified on the second row, Ferrari looked capable of troubling Mercedes, and then smoke appeared from the rear of his car on the formation lap before he pulled over and climbed out.
What made it more notable was how unusual it was for Vettel. From his debut start in the 2007 United States Grand Prix through the opening round of 2016 in Australia, he had always taken the start when entered. Bahrain became the first interruption to that sequence, making it a quiet anomaly in one of Formula 1’s most durable early-career runs.
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