Australian Grand Prix organisers won’t rule out bans for those who first invaded the track at this month’s race, after images of those people were forward to Victoria Police.
The Australian Grand Prix Corporation is still investigating what led to the early track incursion, which occurred while cars were still doing laps of Albert Park following the Formula 1 race.
Images of up to six people have been sent to Victoria Police, who are yet to publicly release them.
The grand prix’s general manager of operations Tom Mottram said race organisers wanted to speak to those people, and find out what their motives were, before determining whether bans were applicable.
“We’ll look at the powers we have and Victoria Police have under the major sporting events act that we operate under, as well as the grand prix act,” he said.
“Once the floodgates opened, unfortunately you’ve got to kind of run with it and manage it accordingly. But we’ve identified five or six persons of interest who breached the track early, and we want to be talking to them.
“It’s not something we will ever tolerate or accept and people need to realise this was a very dangerous undertaking that occurred.
“We’ll find out what was the understanding or motive, and whether it’s something they did with malicious intent or they subconsciously found themselves in that position. I wouldn’t want to jump to any conclusions until we’ve had an opportunity to chat to them.”
The Australian Grand Prix Corporation is yet to hear from the governing body FIA [Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile] regarding its response to the stewards’ recommendations, but is conducting its own investigation with aims to submit its review to the FIA by June 30.
While the investigation is still to determine whether the area which was breached had enough security staffing it, or enough fencing to prevent the early invasion, Mottram said better patron education may need to be considered after Formula 1’s growth with new fans post-COVID and the Netflix series Drive To Survive were considered factors for the track invasion.
A scene from this year’s Australian Grand Prix.Credit: AP
“What we’re essentially finding is post-COVID, crowd behaviours and crowd dynamics have really changed for us,” Mottram said.
“Our early findings already suggest our motorsport crowd in the past has been a compliant crowd, if I can put it that way. We’re certainly finding in the post-COVID environment, we’ve got new and young fans that have come to the event, and they’re not quite understanding the unsafe nature and dangers they put themselves in when they undertake these types of things.
“It almost feels like they think it’s similar to running onto the SGC when Buddy Franklin kicked his 1000th goal. It’s certainly not the same.
Fans rushed on to the Sydney Cricket Ground as Lance Franklin kicked his 1000th goal last year.Credit: Getty Images
“We want to have culture vultures and young event goers that are there for the event as a whole, and not just the racing on track. So, it’s a double-edged sword for us.
“[But] it is something we’re looking at from more of a contributing factor point of view.”
