Formula 1 drivers left fuming due to tractor on track in Japanese Grand Prix - Watch
Pierre Gasly passed dangerously close to a tractor on track under the safety car.
Red Bull Max Verstappen sealed a second consecutive Drivers' Championship title by winning the Japanese Grand Prix. However, the whole race was almost overshadowed by an incident in which Alpha Tauri's Pierre Gasly passed dangerously close to a tractor on the track that left the driver's livid.
The tractor was deployed to recover Ferrari's Carlos Sainz's car after the Spaniard crashed in heavy rain on a chaotic first lap. Videos show Gasly passing by the tractor, which was standing dangerously close to the racing line. Other footage also showed that there were also marshals on the track and one had got out of the way just seconds before Gasly went through.
The race was red-flagged on the third lap and had not restarted more than an hour later as rain continued to fall. The incident brought back memories of French driver Jules Bianchi's horrific accident at the same track in 2014. Driving for the Marussia F1 Team, Bianchi had collided with a tractor crane that was recovering a car at the time. He underwent emergency surgery and was placed in an induced coma, but never recovered and died in July 2015, making him the first driver since Brazilian great Ayrton Senna in 1994 to die due to an on-track incident in Formula 1.
Gasly called Sunday's incident "not acceptable". "We lost Jules eight years ago in similar conditions, with a crane on track in the gravel," said the Frenchman. “I don't understand how eight years later, in similar conditions, we can see a crane -- not even in the gravel, on the racing line. It is not respectful to Jules, his family, or his loved ones, or all of us.”
Other drivers also called for an explanation to be given as to how the tractor was on the track despite Gasly yet to pass. Gasly was trying to catch the field behind the safety car, having pitted to remove an advertising board that had stuck to the front of his car after Sainz had dislodged it in his crash.
"In any conditions, we should never see a crane on track while the cars are out there," said Red Bull's Sergio Perez, who finished second. "You don't know what could happen. It doesn't matter about the conditions -- it should just never happen."
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was among those calling for a full investigation into the incident.
"We lost Jules Bianchi here eight years ago and that should never, ever happen. There needs to be a full investigation into why there was a recovery vehicle on the circuit," he told Sky Sports F1
Sainz said: "Even behind a safety car we are going at 100 or 150kph and still at those speeds we don't see nothing.
"I still don't know why we keep risking, in these conditions, having a tractor on track. You were going to red flag it anyway, so why risk it?"
