Danish driver Marco Sørensen, caught in a spectacular accident on a straight line in Monza earlier today, has received a five-place grid penalty for tomorrow’s race.
The Tech 1 Racing driver started from the twelfth place on the grid. As he was approaching the last curve of the track, he was trying to defend his seventh place from Jazeman Jaafar who got right next to him at the beginning of the straight line.
To retain his position, the Lotus test driver, he went to the right side of the track but Jaafar did not move and Sørensen’s car went flying in the air before hitting the pitwall at high speed.
The Lotus test driver to defend his car pulled to the right but did not react Jaafar and Sørensen’s car flew off and subsequently impacting at high speed into the safety fencing. The force of the impact sent him almost at the other end of the straight line. As for Jazeman Jaafar, his car spinned, slid on the other side of the track and then crashed into the barriers around the middle of the straight line. The crash put all the drivers into danger and the Safety car was sent on the track immediately.
I was clear from the images that Sørensen was the one to blame, but what does he think of his penalty?
Marco Sørensen : « I was a little bit ahead. I was just following the slipstream, so I moved a bit inside” declared the Danish driver. “Jaafar told me that I turned on him really quickly but after watching the video I think he should have moved when I did” added the Tech 1 Racing driver.
“I don’t understand the decision (to penalize him). They always say during the briefing that as long as you leave space for another car everything is fine” said the Lotus F1 test driver who does not agree at all with the penalty.
The driver also talked about the accident: “When I went flying in the air I thought I was f*cked. You know you are going to hit the wall. The first time I hit it was hard but I saw it coming and I had to prepare for it. Then when I was upside down and couldn’t get out, I saw that something was leaking from the car. That was the forst feeling. I thought that if it caught fire I was trapped. I was calling for help, for people to flip the car and get me out.”
Although the accident was quite scary to watch, it only causes controversy as championship only begins. Come back to FormulaRapida.net at 9am tomorrow for all the live info on qualifying for race 2.
Marlon Stockinger (Lotus) was also penalized for overtaking while the Safety Car was on track. The Filipino drivers received a 25 seconds penalty that sent him from the 7th position to the 14th.
