A Very Unfortunate Bird Could Have Made McLaren’s Brazilian Grand Prix Weekend Even Worse

Anyone who’s ever had the misfortune to hit a bird while driving knows how much it blows. Now imagine how quick hitting a bird at up to 200 mph could really ruin your day. Such are the unfortunate worries of McLaren driver Stoffel Vandoorne at the Interlagos circuit this weekend. During the third practice earlier on Saturday morning, Vandoorne had to phone into the pit wall with some unfortunate news. He might have hit a bird. Whoops! You can barely even see the bird in the video. Just a blur and then—whoosh! It’s gone. The winged critter certainly looked like it might have come in contact with the McLaren, but the smart folks on pit wall couldn’t detect any damage, so the Belgian driver kept on truckin’ along. When viewed from the outside, though, it definitely looks like the bird had something unfortunate happen to him, whether that be bouncing off a tire or being sucked into a highly channeled airflow, because the thing just goes flying up into the ether at a very questionable—and definitely unnatural—angle. But it’s safe to say things could have been far worse for both players in this equation. Although, after qualifying dead last, you gotta think that maybe Stoffel would have liked to have a reason to pinpoint a very unfortunate performance.