F1 drivers and teams were unanimous in agreement to push the FIA in a thorough review regarding the tractor incident in Japanese GP.
No sooner had Max Verstappen clinched his second world championship in F1 Japanese GP, recriminations started over an incident involving AlphaTauri driver Gasly which bore stark resemblance to the 2014 Jules Bianchi tragedy at the same track in Suzuka.
After a chaotic and crash-heavy start to the race in horrendous conditions at Suzuka, a recovery vehicle entered the circuit to retrieve the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz at Turn 12. While the majority cars passed the crane at slow speed behind the Safety Car, Gasly – who started in the pit-lane was considerably behind and as it transpired, was going more quickly as he encountered the tractor in poor track conditions.
Gasly spoke afterwards advising he feared for his life but alongside this and possibly worse is that he was penalised for speeding under red flag conditions to the tune of 20 seconds and also received two penalty points. Social media was lit, calling it a ridiculous and frightening scenario.
The F1 driver world were unanimous about the situation and called for investigation into the matter, with team bosses also supporting it. After the race, Gasly and many others vent their feelings over an incident which could have quite easily had very fatal consequences.
Pierre Gasly: “We lost Jules already. We all lost an amazing guy, an amazing driver, for the reasons that we know. Eight years ago, on the same track, in the same conditions, with a crane. How? How today can we see a crane, not only in the gravel, on a race track, while we are still on the track? I don’t understand that. Obviously I got scared. Obviously if I would have lost the car in a similar way Carlos lost it the lap before – it doesn’t matter the speed, 200kph, 100 – I would have died, as simple as that. I don’t understand. It’s disrespectful to Jules, disrespectful to his family. All of us are risking our lives out there”.
“We are doing the best job in the world but what we are asking is to at least keep us safe, it’s already dangerous enough. Today I just feel it was unnecessary. We could have waited one more minute to get back in the pit-lane and then put the tractors on track. I’m just extremely grateful that I’m here and tonight I’m going to call my family and all my loved ones and the outcome is what it is. I passed two metres from that crane, and if I was two metres to the left I would have been dead”.
“Glad to go home safe tonight. For the respect of Jules, all his family and for our safety and the one of the marshals, there should never be any tractor nor marshals on track in such conditions with such poor visibility. Period. For clarity, as discussed with the stewards, the penalty was given for going too fast between T14 & T15 which isn’t where the tractor was, I slowed down, but not enough and I take the blame for it. As for T12, I was respecting the delta time under SC (expected speed during SC) approaching T12, the red flag was then displayed too late for me to react & brake safely with the tractor & marshal right on the racing line.”
Sebastian Vettel: “It’s probably not enough (Jules Bianchi) after what happened here today. Like lots of things we need to understand and learn from because today we were just lucky. I was also scared because I was coming around with I don’t know enough speed so that things can go wrong. The moment you switch the safety car, you need to look after the tyres, trying to warm them up in these conditions. So you can’t see that’s the thing. On the onboard camera, you see more than what we see from the inside of the car. And it’s just not acceptable. We spoke about this also in the driver’s briefing, the service car should never be on the road when we are out in these conditions. Not even when there’s a safety car”.
Max Verstappen: “I arrived there first and I saw the crane and I have perfect visibility but when you’re behind, you always try to drive out of the spray: you go left or you go right, because you can’t really see anything and that is when things happen. You drive suddenly left and suddenly you can see a crane or whatever, that would be very dangerous at any speed. So that’s definitely something we need to improve.”
Sergio Perez: “That’s the lowest point we’ve seen in the sport for years. What happened today just makes me so angry. I just hope ever in the sport we never get to see this situation ever again. We saw what happened here a few years ago with our friend Jules and absolutely I don’t care about what was the reason for that. It should never happen again, ever in any category. In any conditions which should never see a crane on track while the cars are out there. You do not really know what can happen there. It doesn’t matter (about) the conditions; it should just never happen and I really hope that this is the last time we get to see in any category the recovery vehicles on track while there are cars out there. I think in that regard it was right to stop the race, to start the race at the times we did, but what is really low and was the lowest thing I’ve seen in years was two crane vehicles out there.”
Charles Leclerc: “We shouldn’t see these type of things. Of course, something happened in 2014 and we all know that and I think we should all learn from it. And whenever you try to have a bit more visibility, you can get surprised by having a crane in the middle of the track. So yeah, it shouldn’t happen and I really hope we learn from it and that these things we don’t see them again.”
Lando Norris: “Wtf. How’s this happened!? We lost a life in this situation years ago. We risk our lives, especially in conditions like this. We wanna race. But this… Unacceptable.”
Carlos Sainz: “What people don’t understand is that even behind the safety car going 100, 150kph, we don’t see anything. So even if there’s a crane on track and we are behind the safety car going 100kph, one driver could do a small mistake, a stupid mistake, go a bit off line, don’t remember that there’s a tractor there and crash into a tractor. So why even risk it? I guess this is more our point.”
Fernando Alonso: “It’s unacceptable for sure. But at the same time we need to understand why that tractor was there, who made the decision, who made that call, if they misunderstood something and the tractor was out without permission from the race director. So until we find the full explanation, which we will require the full explanation, we cannot comment too much.”
Nicholas Latifi: “For Pierre it’s one thing because he was I think by himself because he had just pitted, so he doesn’t have the reference of the cars in front. But me I was under the safety car and I barely saw the crane. So yeah, everyone passed the crane under safety car but I didn’t see it until I was 10 feet away. This is still safety car. That’s not a red flag. I didn’t see it until I was 10 feet away. So if I just want to drive on the outside line, just because, I would have seen it too late. So my opinion it’s even worse than what happened many years ago because the crane was actually on the track. I mean, obviously a crane off the track is still an issue when it’s exposed and the crane was on the track. So unacceptable.”
George Russell: “A tractor should never be on a circuit when race cars are… never.”
Alex Wurz: “I think we need to discuss a tractor on track….. we can keep it short: this must NOT happen guys.”
Christian Horner: “We lost Jules Bianchi here eight years ago, and that should never ever happen. There needs to be a full investigation into why there was a recovery vehicle on the circuit. Checo reported it to us and of course in those horrendous conditions when visibility is zero, it’s extremely dangerous. The Virtual Safety Car was brought in for a reason following that awful accident all those years ago. There needs to be a full, full investigation into why that vehicle was on track because it obviously shouldn’t have been there.”
Andreas Seidl: “It is obviously clear that something like this absolutely must not happen. At the same time it is important to discuss this with the FIA, together with the drivers as well, in a constructive way, and then wait for an analysis.”
Mattio Binotto: “We should we have started the race standing start or should we have started behind the safety car at first? I think behind the safety car would have been certainly safer, and safety should have always been put in that first position. Why I’m saying that, because as soon as we started, a lot of drivers, obviously most of the drivers on intermediate tyres which were the fastest, but then very little grip, very little visibility, and maybe by starting behind the safety car, it would give you at least a couple of laps to understand the situation, have the feedback from the drivers before deciding to go for it. I think at first that was a critical point. The second, certainly the crane, having the crane on-track while the cars are running, we said that, very dangerous. It should not happen. So overall, I think it has been a bad situation that again, needs to be addressed. It cannot happen any more.”
Jenson Button: “I completely agree with Pierre and all the drivers, there should never be a crane on the circuit in those conditions. The other thing is, even if the crane wasn’t there, he was going too fast. There are double-waved yellows, and you’re supposed to be able to stop if you need to. To be fair to Pierre, I don’t think any driver respects it that much, but he was going past it at a high speed. Two very different points. I totally agree with him there should never be anything on the track that should harm you. But the marshal jumping out the way, it’s because he was going very fast past the incident.”
The fact of the matter remains that it happened and that F1 needs to review and rethink. Lessons have been learnt from 2014, but better communication needs to administered on track at all times. In light of the incident, it was found that Gasly was going too quick but a recovery vehicle should never have been on track until it was 100% safe to do so.
Here’s FIA on thorough review