He is the first F1 driver ever to be disqualified from a Grand Prix after spectators pushed his car

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Since Formula 1’s inception, 117 races have seen a driver or team be disqualified from a Grand Prix. In 2025, there were six black flags across the season.

Three of them came at the second race of the year. Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified from the Chinese GP alongside Alpine’s Pierre Gasly.

Leclerc and Gasly were black flagged for being underweight, while Hamilton’s punishment was for excessive plank wear. It marked the first time in Ferrari’s history that both cars were disqualified from a race.

Excessive skid block wear was an issue in Bahrain, as Nico Hulkenberg received the black flag. It would not happen again until Las Vegas, where McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were disqualified for plank wear, but thankfully for the former, he still won the 2025 title.

These disqualifications show just how minimal an infringement can be to lead to a race weekend being completely destroyed. But things were a lot more open in F1’s early days, with 1952 seeing the first ever black flag for something that almost never happens today.

READ MORE: What Helmut Marko said ‘off the record’ after McLaren disqualification at the Las Vegas Grand Prix

Felice Bonetto was the first Formula 1 driver to be disqualified at the 1952 German Grand Prix

It took Formula 1 until its third season to see the first disqualification be handed out. That went to Italian Felice Bonetto at the 1952 German Grand Prix.

Bonetto was taking part in his first race of the season for Maserati at the Nurburgring. He qualified 10th in what was a dramatic race, with only 12 cars finishing.

The Maserati driver’s race ended on the first lap. After climbing up to fourth, he spun out and stalled his car, taking him out of contention.

Spectators then came onto the track to give Bonetto a push start, an action that was illegal in F1. When he got his car going again, he was shown the black flag, the first time that had happened in the sport’s history.

How did Felice Bonetto do across his Formula 1 career?

Bonetto’s F1 career was a relatively short one. He took part in the first ever season in 1950, finishing fifth on debut at the Swiss GP for Scuderia Milano.

In 1951, he moved to Alfa Romeo and grabbed his first podium at Monza with P3. That year would mark his best finish in F1 with P9, despite only taking part in four races.

After his DSQ in Germany in 1952, he only competed in one more race that year, finishing fifth at Monza. He came back for a full-time assault in 1953, grabbing his second and final podium with third at Zandvoort.

Bonetto enjoyed success outside of F1 too, finishing second in class at the 1949 Mille Miglia with Ferrari. He finished second in class at the 1953 24 Hours of Le Mans, before tragically losing his life at that year’s Carrera Panamericana.