Safety protocols are being reviewed once again after a Formula One fan at the Australian Grand Prix was injured after being struck by debris from a speeding car (Kevin Magnussen’s car).
According to the injured fan, Will Sweet, he was standing with his fiancee on a packed hill just off turn two at Albert Park during Sunday’s race when the Danish Haas driver’s car hit the track-side barrier sending his tyre and debris flying into the air.
“It slapped me in the arm and I was just standing there bleeding. My arm was covering where my neck would’ve been, but if that had hit my fiancee, it would’ve got her right in the head”.
“I realized how big it was and how heavy it was. Part of it was shredded and really sharp, if it hit me in a different angle, it could’ve been horrendous,” he said.
Sweet further lamented the poor safety protocols at the racing venue saying there were many young children around, and that no race officials came to assist him. “No one even came and looked,” he said. “My fiancee was pretty spooked by it and borderline shell-shocked.”
Flashback to 2001, at the Australian Grand Prix, a track marshal was killed when hit by the wheel of Jacques Villeneuve’s car following a crash with Williams’ Ralf Schumacher.
The race’s organizers are also under heavy scrutiny after many fans invaded the track near the end of the race.
Formula One stewards have requested the Australian Grand Prix Corporation (AGPC) to urgently produce a “remediation plan” about the security and safety failures that allowed fans to access the track.
“All of this presented significant danger to the spectators; race officials and the drivers,” stewards said in a statement issued by the governing body, FIA.
In response, the AGPC-fronted stewards agreed to the safety and security failures, saying it was an “unacceptable situation that could have had disastrous consequences”.
The track organizers were then directed to give a formal remediation plan to address the failures, including a review of the marshals protecting Hulkenberg’s car which many spectators got to.
Stewards also requested that the FIA should direct the incident to the governing body’s World Motor Sports Council to determine whether penalties should be applied. The AGPC asked to have until 30 June to submit its review.
