There was unanimous anger and bewilderment among F1 drivers over the recovery vehicle incident that took place at the start of the Japanese Grand Prix, with everyone calling it "unacceptable".
The incident took place after the race had been neutralized by the safety car due to a downpour and came to the attention of viewers when AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly – who was catching up with the field after stopping to change a damaged front wing – passed almost at full speed a flatbed truck stranded on the left-hand side of the track.
Infuriated by the vehicle's dangerous presence, Gasly radioed his team : "What is this tractor on track? I passed next to it. This is unacceptable. Remember what has happened. Can't believe this!"
The incident obviously brought back memories of Jules Bianchi's death at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix, when the young Frenchman slid off the track and hit a tractor operating in a run-off area and suffered traumatic head injuries.
GPDA chairman Alex Wurz was quick to react to the incident.
"We need to discuss a tractor on track... We can keep it short: this must not happen, guys," he commented.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said: "It is totally unacceptable. We lost Jules Bianchi here and that should never, ever happen, so there needs to be a full investigation as to why there was a recovery vehicle on the circuit.
"Checo [Sergio Perez] reported it to us and in those horrendous conditions where visibility was zero, extremely dangerous."
Perez also weighed in on Twitter: "How can we make it clear that we never want to see a crane on track? We lost Jules because of that mistake.
"What happened today is totally unacceptable! I hope this is the last time ever I see a crane on track!"
During the race's pause, McLaren's Lando Norris commented on Twitter: "Wtf. How's this happened!? We lost a life in this situation years ago," McLaren driver Lando Norris said.
"We risk our lives, especially in conditions like this. We wanna race. But this… Unacceptable."
Ferrari's Carlos, who crashed out of the race on the opening lap, was at a loss to understand why the marshals had risked sending out the recovery vehicle in such poor conditions.
"What people don't understand is that even behind the safety car going 100, 150kph, we don't see anything," said the Spaniard.
"So even if there's a crane on track and we are behind the safety car going 100kph, one driver could do a small mistake, a stupid mistake, go a bit offline, not remember that there's a tractor there, and crash into a tractor. So why even risk it? I guess this is more our point."
Should have been an instant red flag with a stricken car in a critical position in those conditions. Clearly debris on track too. Should NEVER EVER be a tractor on track until the cars are all collected up behind a safety car or in the pits. Gasly can’t take all the blame here
— Martin Brundle (@MBrundleF1) October 9, 2022
Oddly, the FIA's reaction to the incident was to put Gasly under investigation for speeding under the red flags. The latter had been deployed just seconds before the Frenchman has passed the recovery vehicle.
The AlphaTauri driver was given a drive through penalty (20 seconds added to elapsed race time) and 2 penalty points for “speeding under red flag conditions”
But Sainz was critical of the FIA blaming Gasly for creating a dangerous situation.
“I think you don't need to leave it to the luck of the driver. I think you are going to red flag the race anyway, why send a vehicle out?" said the Spaniard.
"Maybe wait a bit to bunch the field up, I don't know, and go really slow. The driver is always going to in an extreme, try to put a bit of temperature in, in case the race gets restarted. It's a tricky one, but yeah, quite risky."
On his own crash at the start of the race, Sainz said that after spinning he spent twnety agonizing seconds fearing he would be hit by another car.
“I had zero visibility already in fourth and trying to get out of the spray I went into a puddle on an intermediate tyre. That doesn't evacuate as much water, and I went into a spin.
"The worst part probably came later when I was in the middle of the track, spun, and I knew that everyone behind me was not going to see if I was there or not.
Not ideal for sure. There was 20 seconds where I didn't know if I was going to get crashed, bracing and just expecting and hoping that my mates were either going to have good reflexes or good luck."
Finally, Philippe Bianchi, Jules' father, posted an understandably strong message on Instagram.
"No respect for the life of the driver, no respect for Jules' memory. Incredible," wrote the Frenchman.
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