HAMILTON’S TRIBUTE
Hamilton tribute to French driver, 22, killed in horror crash at Spa
LEWIS HAMILTON will lead Formula One’s mourning community when it bows its head in silence before today’s Belgian Grand Prix. Then 20 men will race up the steep face of Eau Rouge corner, where yesterday afternoon a 22-year-old French racing driver died.
Anthoine Hubert’s name was little known beyond committed motorracing followers until his horrific accident at the start of the second lap of the Formula Two race. Travelling at 160mph, the Renault junior seemed to lose control — apparently reacting to events in front of him — and hit the tyre wall on the righthand side at the top of the hill.
His Arden car — representing the team run by Red Bull team principal Christian Horner’s father, Garry — rebounded back on to the track, where Juan-Manuel Correa, an American driving a Charouz, carved straight through the middle of him.
Hubert, who had started the race in 13th place, sustained the impact at 5.07pm. The TV cameras cut away immediately, an augury of doom in itself.
An FIA statement said: ‘The scene was immediately attended by emergency and medical crews, and all the drivers were taken to the medical centre. As a result of the incident, the FIA regrets to reveal that the driver of car 19, Anthoine Hubert, succumbed to his injuries and passed away at 6.35pm (certified in the medical centre by a doctor).’
‘This is devastating,’ said Formula One world champion Hamilton. ‘God rest your soul, Anthoine. My prayers and thoughts are with you and your family today.’
Hamilton, who had suffered a 140mph crash at the Fagnes chicane in practice earlier in the day, but walked away unscathed to qualify third, added: ‘If a single one of you watching and enjoying this sport think for a second what we do is safe you’re hugely mistaken.
‘All these drivers put their lives on the line when they hit the track and people need to appreciate that in a serious way because it is not appreciated enough.
‘Not from the fans, nor some of the people actually working in the sport. Anthoine is a hero, as far as I’m concerned, for taking the risk he did to chase his dreams.
‘I’m so sad that this has happened. Let’s lift him up and remember him. Rest in peace, brother.’
Hubert, born in Lyon, was the reigning GP3 champion. He had won twice this season, including in Monaco, and was lying eighth in the F2 Championship.
The geometry of Hubert’s impact would have been vicious anywhere, but nowhere more so than at Eau Rouge, a snaking piece of tarmac cutting through the Ardennes forest and equally famed and feared in motor racing lore.
It has remained largely unaltered since 1939, though its perils have somewhat been negated by modern cars, resilient and decked out with every safety device known to man.
Indeed, motor racing has therefore grown partially inured to death, as Hamilton bemoaned. This was the first time a driver has perished during an FIA-sanctioned F1 support race since Ayrton Senna at Imola 25 years ago.
Jules Bianchi, the last F1 driver to die of a grand prix accident, survived for nine months after suffering brain damage in a crash at the Japanese Grand Prix of 2014.
Correa was flown by helicopter to CHU Liege hospital 40 miles northwest of Spa, where he was in a stable condition last night. It is believed he broke both legs and suffered blood haemorrhaging at the scene.
The driver of the third car involved, Giuliano Alesi, was declared fit at the medical centre.
The race was immediately called off. Fear of the impending news gradually spread but not everyone was immediately aware of what was happening. A merry throng had followed Charles Leclerc through the paddock and congratulated him on his F1 pole for today’s race.
‘Thank you,’ said the Monegasque, smiling. His last, sparkling qualifying lap had taken place less than an hour earlier and put him ahead of his Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel and Hamilton. And today Leclerc, given a clean start, will lead the field up Eau Rouge at speeds approaching 200mph.
Soon a sombre atmosphere fell across Spa, its sylvan setting verdant in 30C heat under a cobalt blue sky. Mick Schumacher, the 20year-old scion of a motor racing dynasty, who had started the fateful race sixth on the grid, sat next to his mother, Corinna, on the high kerb of the pit wall, facing the garages.
What swirl of conflicting thoughts must have passed through their minds, nearly six years on from seeing the great and seemingly impregnable Michael, husband and father, stricken by brain injuries while skiing? At the F2 hospitality area down at the foot of Eau Rouge, the mother of another young racer, the Italian Luca Ghiotto, who had started ninth for UNI-Virtuosi, held her son’s head in her hands and lingered over the hug.
Eau Rouge — so called because
the stream that runs under the track is turned red by iron oxide deposits in its stones and riverbed — has known tragedy before, never more so than when it claimed the life of Stefan Bellof in 1985.
The German doubled up to take part in the World Sportscar Championship at Spa.
His Porsche collided with the car of Jacky Ickx and he died, aged 27, of internal injuries.
Last night, a music concert scheduled to be staged at the track was cancelled and the F1 teams scrubbed their scheduled press conferences as a mark of respect.
Even if every driver decides to take part in this now subdued Belgian Grand Prix this afternoon, they will struggle to hide the anguish that will have ambushed them, a generation for whom the casualty rates of the past are a different country.
But they will prove, if they do race, that a mad fearlessness still separates them from the rest of us.