I COULD HAVE DIED, GASLY FUMES AT CRANE INCIDENT
Images of Bianchi horror accident come flooding back after Frenchman narrowly avoids crashing into recovery vehicle in rain-hit Japanese GP
An emotional Pierre Gasly said he feared for his life at the start of the Japanese Grand Prix when he narrowly avoided crashing into a crane on the same racetrack where countryman Jules Bianchi was killed in a similar incident.
The crane, or tractor as the drivers called it, was deployed on Sunday when cars began sliding off course at the start of the rainsoaked race. The recovery vehicle was on the Suzuka Circuit to collect Carlos Sainz’s car after Sainz had gone off course in the wet conditions.
Although other drivers passed by the crane at slow speed, Gasly had started the race from the pit lane and was rushing to catch the pack in poor visibility when he came upon the safety crew. He sped past the crane and safety worker who was standing on the track.
The FIA penalised Gasly after the race for not slowing under the red-flag conditions, but the Frenchman was furious. “What is this tractor on track?” Gasly screamed on his team radio. “This is unacceptable. Remember what happened. Can’t believe this. We don’t want to see ever, a crane on the track.”
In 2014, Bianchi lost control of his car in wet conditions on the same track and collided with a recovery vehicle. He remained comatose with a head injury for nine months before he died aged 25. Bianchi’s death was the first from an on-track incident in F1 since Ayrton Senna’s fatal crash in 1994.
“We lost Jules already. We all lost an amazing guy, an amazing driver, for the reasons that we know. Eight years ago, on the same track, in the same conditions, with a crane,” Gasly fumed after the race. “How? How today can we see a crane, not only in the gravel, on a racetrack, while we are still on the track? I don’t understand that.
“Obviously I got scared. Obviously if I would have lost the car in a similar way Carlos lost it the lap before ... I would have died, as simple as that.”
F1’s governing body penalised
Gasly with a 20-second time penalty and two penalty points, but it said it would also investigate the circumstances that led to the crane being on the course.
“It’s disrespectful to Jules, disrespectful to his family. All of us are risking our lives out there. We are doing the best job in the world but what we are asking is to at least keep us safe, it’s already dangerous enough,” Gasly raged.
“We could have waited one more minute to get back in the pit lane and then put the tractors on track. I’m just extremely grateful that I’m here.
“I passed two metres from that crane, and if I was two metres to the left I would have been dead.”
Bianchi’s father, Phillippe, posted on Instagram during the race that there was “no respect for the life of the driver, no respect for Jules’ memory”.
The fury was shared across the F1 paddock. “That’s the lowest point we’ve seen in the sport for years,” driver Sergio Perez said.
While Max Verstappen won the race and was crowned world champion again, there was no reward for Zhou Guanyu’s heroics under the pouring rain in Suzuka.
Despite Alfa Romeo’s relentless work in a red-flagged, much-delayed race, Chinese rookie Zhou finished 16th, while teammate Valtteri Bottas finished one place ahead.
Zhou, however, set the fastest lap of the race – his first such accolade in his Formula One career. “I have positives to take from the weekend, even though we didn’t score,” Zhou said.
“It was nice to see that we can still be so close and have good pace; furthermore, it being my first time in Suzuka, I learned a lot over the weekend.
“We gave it a try, I got to gain my first-ever fastest lap. We can be quietly confident.”
All of us are risking our lives out there ... what we are asking is to at least keep us safe
PIERRE GASLY