Clutch blown - first gear?
 

I was driving a Mini S up a hill, crested the hill, saw a red light, prepared to stop by depressing the clutch and placing it in first gear. Light turned green, I eased off the clutch but remained in first, somewhere between 15 and 20MPH. Car jerked, made a light metallic noise, and I lost power to the wheels. Just heard back from the mechanic that it threw a bearing and the clutch is ruined.

As someone who hasn't driven Mini's and done similar things in Audi's, is this normal? Isn't there a bearing lockout preventing someone from entering 1st at an unsafe speed?


After looking up gear ratio's it definitely appears that 4.17 in a mini is far from the ~3 I'm used to in an A4, just trying to find out how much of this was my irresponsible shifting, and how much of this was an already worn out clutch. Any MCS owners want to share their experiences doing something similar?

With the speed figures you are quoting here it sounds to me like you gave the clutch a very hard time. Might be your fault.