McLaren Racing has provided update on the fire in its motorhome before the FP3 session in F1 Spanish GP, with the mechanic released from the hospital too.
This morning a fire was detected in our trackside Team Hub (in the kitchen area in the upper floor). The Team Hub was evacuated of all staff and guests and circuit emergency services attended the scene within minutes. The circuit emergency services and local fire department have since extinguished the fire.
One McLaren team member has been taken to hospital as a precaution, and all McLaren personnel and guests are accounted for. We would like to thank all the marshals and emergency services for their quick and professional response. We would also like to thank Formula 1, the FIA and our competitors who have offered to help our team and guests this weekend.
Further update: The McLaren team member who had been taken to hospital for review has now been discharged. Our thanks go to the circuit and hospital medical staff for their care and support. We are still assessing the Team Hub and can’t provide a further update at this time.
Lando Norris: “I mean, first of all, from that side, the best thing is everyone’s safe, everyone’s doing well. Yeah, so that’s probably the best news from everything. One person was taken to hospital just for some check-ups, but all good otherwise. So a bit of a scare for the whole team, never a nice thing. But just a bit more of probably a stressful day than I would have liked. Yeah, I lost my shoes. That was probably as bad as it got for me, honestly. I mean, yeah, just different. I mean, I’ve not been in my normal room. I’ve not been able to maybe relax and chill out as much as what I normally do. I’ve had a lot of offers from people, so it’s been great. But a lot of the teams, honestly, have been very, very nice to us, McLaren, in offering help and things like that. So that was all good from that side. But a shame that it won’t be used today or tomorrow, I don’t think, for anything, maybe not into the future, but that’s not anything that I know about for now. So that was that.
“It’s all been a little bit messy but I think I have one or two sets of everything and I think they managed to get some stuff out but some of it’s probably not the best to use or it smells pretty bad from the fire. Some things I got out, but I like to listen to my music and stuff before and Oscar complains a lot because my music’s so loud, pre-sessions. But I just didn’t have that this time and I’m up in the engineering office and Oscar’s down in the truck below. And that’s Zak’s office that I’ve taken over. So now Zak’s a bit unhappy that Zak’s in there. Honestly, nothing’s been an issue. And I’ve never been that guy to kind of complain about these things. Honestly, I could just be doing nothing and just jump in the car when I need to but when you have an ability to kind of have a few minutes to yourself and a couple of those things, you take them, because you want to just relax and think to yourself for a few minutes before you go out and do it. Nothing for today. Maybe tomorrow will impact me a bit more that I can’t get that quiet time that that I love. But it’s not the end of the world, so I’m not going to complain about it.”
Oscar Piastri: “Honestly, it was not a lot of distraction. I was in the motorhome and I had to leave but they have been able to set us up a room elsewhere and everything else has run smoothly. Obviously, it is not ideal but just happy that everyone’s okay and apart from that as I said, it has not been a distraction.”