Formula 1’s safety procedures dramatically broke down on Sunday at the Japanese Grand Prix resulting in Pierre Gasly’s terrifying near miss with a recovery truck in treacherous conditions on the first lap of the race.
It was just one of several regulatory failures on a chaotic and unpredictable day at Suzuka, and though it was the highest profile mistake given its dangerousness, another howler handed Max Verstappen the championship one race early.
Watch Every Practice, Qualifying & Race of The 2022 MotoGP World Championship Live & Ad-Break Free During Racing on Kayo. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >
Verstappen wins it all in Japan! | 02:30
MORE FROM JAPAN
Daniel Ricciardo’s Japanese GP gamble backfires in ugly fashion
Where Verstappen’s second title puts him among the greats — and in the record books
Big question after shambolic opening; confusing problem unravelled: talking points
It was an embarrassing way for the highest prize in world motorsport to be decided and unfortunately overshadows Verstappen’s richly deserved second championship.
The cack-handedness began from the very first moment, with the race started on a track that already featured a blinding amount of spray as the weather continued deteriorating.
The first sector was largely trouble free, but out of the hairpin Carlos Sainz ran over a forming river crossing the circuit and helplessly aquaplaned himself across the track and into the wall.
Watching drivers fly past barely metres from his stricken car was toe-curling to watch, and it was fortunate the worst to come of it was Gasly collecting an advertising hoarding.
But the use of the safety car to deploy a rescue truck onto the track was substantially more controversial and infinitely more dangerous.
To be clear, it is standard practice to use on-track recovery vehicles when the safety car is deployed — that’s the point of it. When cars are bunched behind the safety car, they’re forced to drive at a safe speed and have the safety car driver guiding them out of harm’s way.
But the point of contention isn’t whether the FIA followed the letter of the law; it’s that the truck was deployed to the track in borderline undriveable conditions and with one of the cars not yet in the safety car queue.
Gasly had made a pit stop at the end of the first lap and was still catching up to the back of the pack — and he was entitled to travel at a higher speed to get there.
So you can imagine his shock when, out of the mist, a truck appeared barely metres from him on the racing line at the same place the water was deep enough to tip Sainz into a spin.
The Frenchman was apoplectic, and not for the theoretical danger presented to him.
It was only eight years ago, in 2014, that Jules Bianchi had the crash with a recovery vehicle at this track in similarly treacherous conditions. It ultimately lost him his life.
At the heart of that sorry episode was excess speed in wet conditions with external vehicles on track. Although rules have been tightened to prevent that exact series of events from unfolding again, the fundamental lesson clearly that bad weather, speed and foreign-object hazards don’t mix clearly hasn’t been learnt.
“We lost Jules eight years ago in similar conditions, with a crane on track or in the gravel,” Gasly said. “I don’t understand how eight years later, in similar conditions, we can still see a crane, not even on the gravel but on the racing line.
“It is just not disrespectful towards Jules, towards his family, towards his loved ones and all of us.
“It was a dramatic incident (in 2014) and I think on that day we learned we don’t want to see any tractors in this kind of condition.
“If I would have lost the car in a similar way as Carlos lost it on the lap before — I was doing 200 kilometres per hour, but it is not the matter; even 100 kilometres per hour if I would have lost it — and [with] a 12 tonnes crane, if I hit it, I would’ve been dead right now.”
Bianchi’s father, Philippe was searing in his response during the suspension.
“No respect for the life of the driver,” he posted on social media. “No respect for Jules’s memory.
“Incredible.”
The FIA attempted to defend its use of the safety car and recovery truck with the rules, but the letter of the law completely neglects the reality of the weather conditions, which were so bad that the race was red flagged as Gasly crossed the scene of the accident.
“We were all in the pit lane a minute later,” Gasly said. “Risking my life for one minute — I don’t think that is acceptable.
“I came past two metres on the right — two metres away from passing away today, which I don’t think is acceptable as a race driver.”
Of course Gasly must accept some blame for travelling quite so fast in the conditions — another lesson from 2014 was that drivers need stricter rules regarding speed during caution periods — even if at the moment he approached the crash scene he was technically within the safety car rules.
Verstappen’s anticlimactic championship! | 00:35
The FIA penalised him 20 seconds and two penalty points for subsequently speeding under red flags later on the lap — he hit 250 kilometres an hour on the back straight, which can only be regarded as reckless.
But that can’t distract from the more egregious error of creating an unsafe circuit environment in already unsafe conditions. The FIA can’t use Gasly’s mistake to shield itself from the significantly more dangerous decision to prematurely deploy the recovery truck and put him and the marshals in harm’s way.
After the race the governing body released a short statement saying it would undertake an investigation into the events.
“While it is normal practice to recover cars under safety car and red flag conditions, due to the particular circumstances, and also taking into account feedback from of a number of drivers, the FIA has launched a thorough review of the events involving the deployment of recovery vehicles during the Japanese Grand Prix,” it said.
It also noted, and fair enough, that it always undertakes investigations into all safety-related incidents as a matter of course, which is why Formula 1’s safety standards are so generally high.
“The most important thing is for the future,” Gasly said. “What I want is just to have all my colleagues safe and all of us, whether it is in F1 or in the younger categories, hopefully nobody is going to have to face a similar situation.
“For the sake of us drivers, I hope that this can be the last time that we see a crane and take such an unnecessary risk for all of us race drivers.”
“Hopefully we can finally learn from this situation.”
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE
Any other governance issue pales in comparison to risking the life of a driver, but in an unfortunate postscript, there’s also something of a question mark over the ending of the race under time-certain conditions.
There was a delay of more than two hours between the race being red flagged and then resumed behind the safety car. A grand prix is limited to two hours of racing in a three-hour window, which means the sport had around 45 minutes of racing left by the time the action got back underway.
The regulations state that when the race clock expires, the lap the leader is on at that moment becomes the penultimate lap. They’ll then go around one more time on the final lap, at the end of which the chequered flag will be shown and the race will be over.
The problem is that Verstappen appeared to be shown the chequered flag one lap too early, on the lap the clock ticked down to zero.
This isn’t without precedent. At the 2018 Canadian Grand Prix model Winnie Harlow was told to wave the chequered flag one lap early in a miscommunication with race control.
The race must end when the chequered flag flies regardless of how many laps have been completed.
However, the regulations say that if a race ends before the lap count or the clock expires, the result counts back to the end of the previous lap, similar to the countback rule for red flags.
Because Verstappen was shown the chequered flag too early, the result of the race ought to be taken at the end of lap 27 rather than lap 28.
Charles Leclerc was still ahead of Sergio Perez at the end of lap 27, which means Verstappen wouldn’t have outscored either driver by enough points to have won the championship.
And then there’s also the way the sport came to communicate the points system to the public. Though the TV graphics were correct, the teams, drivers and media were all unclear about whether the race would be rewarded with full points or partial points.
The FIA will argue the regulations are clear — and they are, if you were troubled enough to read through the 117 pages of the sporting regulations to find the single line explaining it — it’s clearly unacceptable to have left TV commentators at a minimum to fumble through the entire race until Johnny Herbert was told in his earpiece during the post-race interviews that Verstappen had sealed the deal.
Some simple communication and clarification wouldn’t have gone astray to prevent the championship-deciding race to end as a fizzer on international feed of the race.
In the grand scheme of everything that happened on Sunday and in the context of Verstappen’s enormous points lead, it seems like a trivial matter, particularly given only two positions changed on the final lap. But it’s yet another unnecessary and messy mistake from race control in conditions and on a day it needed to be better, whether to protect the safety of the drivers or protect the integrity of the championship.
To put it lightly, the whole thing was a bit of a mess — and this comes after the FIA gave race control a major overhaul, including unceremoniously dumping the experienced Michael Masi from his position and replacing him with a rotating pair of race directors, a set-up that is yet to win the confidence of the paddock.
Against the backdrop of the controversial race in Abu Dhabi last year, ongoing skirmishes with drivers and a simmering tension with F1 management, the FIA must reflect on what went wrong in Japan and ensure processes and procedures are put in place to ensure none of these mistakes can happen again.
No person or organisation is immune from mistakes, but some errors are unforgivable, and F1 came painfully close to making one this weekend.
