Terrible situation with the marshal who was was run over earlier today. In general, motor racing relies upon the dedication and enthusiasm of such volunteers, who often get little or no professional training. Such disasters are difficult to legislate for, but this is certainly something F1 needs to re-evaluate. As does everyone else here, I wish the poor chap all the best for a speedy recovery. P.S. Please don't belittle the efforts of Sir Jackie Stewart. For the present day spectacle we all enjoy; i.e. the relative comfort of being unlikely to witness death whilst watching motor racing on our TVs; there is no-one more worthy of our thanks, that such horrors are largely a thing of the past.
You must excuse me cosicave my issue is that Jackie seems to only remember Senna's death as the last time when somebody has died in F1 yet 2 have happend even before this one and he acts like it never happend. Again excuse me I'm a bit ****ed off right now as safety is great for the drivers but still sub par for the people in the firing line.
I told you guys though, Twitter is a fking curse Maria: "Only a few scratches" End's up having her eye removed and parts of skull. Marshal: "Only a few fractures" Dead... ****ing morons...
I hear you Captain! I empathise with your emotion and admire the stance you have taken over this most unfortunate incident. I have just heard that this marshal has died from his injuries. This is a most tragic event. It is also one which would appear to be almost impossible to legislate for. In the immediate aftermath of such unfortunate circumstances, I believe it is wrong to seek to chastise; especially to appear to chastise someone who has probably done as much as anyone for the good of our sport. My thoughts are with this heroic volunteer and his family…
It's always best to take anything with a pinch of salt until there's official word. Twitter is a great tool but also one massive chinese whisper. Man.... I feel so down. Incidents like this always make me question my support. I don't know how people watched through 50's to 70's. And as Cosi says, thanks mostly to Jackie Stewart, we don't have to.
I did spot an Ambulance seemingly on track after the end of the race when the crowd were rushing to the start line, just assumed it was moving position at the end of the race. RIP edit: Before any kneejerk reactions, accidents happen and not every event can be legislated for in some way to stop them. He went to pick up a dropped radio and it cost him his life.
Van der Garde given a five place grid penalty, apparently he drove through blue flags for an entire lap before his collision with Hulkenberg. I though the collision was Hulk's fault, but it's ridiculous for VDG to pick up two penalties for ignoring blue flags in one race, on neither occasion was he racing anyone, inexcusable. Terrible news about the marshall who was killed. Agree with Chris about not having any knee jerk reactions, this could've happened in any workplace and tragically these types of incidents occur all the time, this one just happened to be at a grand prix. But it would be negligent not to look into it. Perhaps they could have trailers to lift the cars onto in future to save people having to jog alongside the recovery vehicle holding the car stable.
Was something up with the blue flags. Sutil and another did the same. and from watching it, it wasn't to clear blue flags were being waved. DC also questioned it
They didn't have many flags but they had a lot of lights. Sutil drove through several with Hamilton behind him. There was one flashing blue just before the hairpin when VDG hit Webber.
That would be a much better way of going about things. Unfortunately there is no way to legislate for every possible type of accident. Terribly tragic event.
Still need a vehicle to pull it. Just a tragic accident, but surely if he was badly injured, why did they allow the cars to run at full speed? Surely it should have been a race stopping incident to allow the proper medical experts i.e. FIA medical team to assist? Whether it would have made a difference is a moot point, but am suprised this didn't happen.
We don't know the full story on the blue flag incidents, I seem to recall there being a problem with the in-car lights, as in they didn't have any for this race for some reason, so that could be a problem, as it isn't always easy to see flags being waved (been done for that a few times myself during races for 'ignoring' yellows I didn't see, although mainly because it was pissing down and I couldn't see 10 feet in front of me), and I didn't hear any radio messages from the teams to the drivers to warn them which I'd assume would have played on air if they'd come through, I felt a bit sorry for Sutil as Hamilton wasn't that close to him, or catching up particularly fast, and I thought he let them through at the safest place (which also gave Hailton the DRS he needed to keep alonso behind for another lap). If you have the speed why should you let someone miles behind past? Hamilton and Vettel in Germany springs to mind when Hamilton 'interfered' in the race lead by unlapping himself. As to the Marshall, it's always sad when someone dies, but at least he died doing something he loved, not much of a comfort to the family of course, but better than rotting to death with cancer
Hamilton made a mistake when he came up behind sutil so I did think it was a bit unfair but Sutil didn't make it easy
That's not exactly a major issue. Those telehandlers they lift the cars with pull trailers, they're quick dropping them off and hitching back on too. And F1 cars only weigh 600kg, you could tow it behind a quad bike if you had to. It obviously depends on the location, if you need to carry it a kilometre having it dangle from a chain with a couple of people trying to hold it steady while you drive through a crowded pit lane probably isn't the best solution. Where it was there's no reason why they couldn't have driven a truck down there to load it on to.
