Liuzzi Recuperated Stolen Steering Wheel after Brazil Crash

Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi heavily crashed during the rainy qualifying session of the Brazilian Grand Prix, yet his main concern was not to check if his body is still functional but if his steering wheel is not lost.

The footage from the Saturday session at Interlagos shows that a race marshall took the steering wheel from the Force India VJM02 shortly after Liuzzi managed to get out of the cockpit and started running with it.

As his team has a clear rule never to give up his steering wheel no matter the incident he's involved in, the Italian “promptly ran down the Sao Paulo marshal and relieved him of his new piece of ultimate memorabilia,” as noted by the GMM news agency.

The team has said to me: 'no matter what happens, never let the steering wheel leave your hands',” Liuzzi said after the incident.

Needless to say, a nowadays steering wheel is worth more than $30,000 and is not an easy piece to replace. According to our guide How to Read an F1 Steering Wheel, its construction could take more than one week, as each parameter of the steering wheel can differ from driver to driver.

Usually, during an accident, the steering wheel is the last piece of the car that gets damaged, as it's mostly the outside materials that get squashed at certain impacts. After an accident, the driver is prompted to immediately remove himself from the car – having to take the steering wheel out first – but put it back in the cockpit.