The Formula 1 paddock reacted immediately when they saw that at the start of the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix, after Carlos Sainz’s serious accident, a crane came out to extract the Spanish car when all the cars were running at a relatively high speed. Pierre Gasly was the protagonist at that moment, when he tried to return to the group after the safety car came out, but he passed just over two meters from the heavy vehicle at 251 km / h , as indicated by the FIA after an investigation in which they agreed impose a penalty of 20 seconds and 2 points of the super license to the French.
The reason for this was the red flag, since the stewards understood that the Frenchman did not adhere to the regime that neutralized the test, putting at risk both his life and that of those who removed Sainz’s car. This caused many to give their opinion and recall Jules Bianchi’s fatal accident on the same stage in 2014 .
One of the most sincere was Sebastian Vettel, who in his farewell to Suzuka finished in a creditable sixth place after taking a risk with the intermediate tires. Asked if he had seen the tow truck, he said: “Yes. I was also scared because I don’t know how fast it was coming, so things can go wrong.”
“The minute the safety car comes out, you have to look after the tyres, trying to warm them up in those conditions,” the Aston Martin man continued. “So you can’t see what that thing was. On the onboard camera, you see more than we see from inside the car, and that’s not acceptable.”
“We also talked about it in the drivers’ briefing , the crane should never be on the track when we are in those conditions. Not even when there is a safety car,” insisted Sebastian Vettel, who acknowledged not having looked at his phone to see if the rest of the grill expressed their anger.
“I don’t check my phone on the run,” he said. “I think we’ll look at it, and I think we have to understand that today was one of those rare days where things could have gone wrong, somebody could have paid the price.”
“A stewards, who volunteer to help and do a great job, or a driver in the car. Even minor injuries are unnecessary, we already had a very traumatic scene eight years ago, and it was too close to being replayed today.” , concluded the German pilot.
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