The motorsports fraternity’s thoughts are with the families of Henry Surtees and Felipe Massa after a pair of tragic racing crashes on successive weekends. And I, like millions of fans around the world, am hoping fervently that the Brazilian Ferrari driver makes a full, speedy recovery. But I’m also concerned about the ill-considered reactions from motorsports officialdom, which only increase the levels of stress in such situations.
It’s uncanny how bad motorsports accidents seem to come in spates. I well remember 1968, after Jimmy Clark was killed at Hockenheim on April 7, that an almost spooky sequence followed, with Mike Spence, Jo Schlesser and Lodovico Scarfiotti perishing on the seventh day of successive months. And who will forget Imola in 1994 when Rubens Barrichello narrowly escaped death in practice, then Roland Ratzenberger crashed and died, followed by a startline incident in the race (bringing out the safety car), and Ayrton Senna’s tragic crash. And, then late in the race, one of Michele Alboreto’s mechanics was hurt in a pitlane incident. At the very next race, Monaco, Karl Wendlinger crashed at the chicane, effectively ending his F1 career…
Now, in a new round of tragedies, come the death of Henry Surtees (son of two- and four-wheel world champion John Surtees), hit by a flying wheel in an F2 race on July 19, followed by Felipe Massa’s serious injury after being hit by a spring that fell off Rubens Barrichello’s Brawn during qualifying in Hungary. And then, in the race, Fernando Alonso’s Renault lost a wheel after the right-front wheelman didn’t get the nut tightened during his pitstop.
It’s almost as if the whole fraternity gets the jitters and becomes accident-prone in the wake of such incidents. But officialdom would be wise not to add to the unease with “shooting from the hip” reactions. After all, motorsport is a dangerous activity, and while all need to do everything possible to keep it as safe as possible, freak incidents will happen.
I see that, in what seems like an ill-considered overreaction, Renault has been banned from the next race, the European Grand Prix at Valencia, for allowing Fernando Alonso to leave the pits with a loose wheel during the Budapast event. Didn’t the officials notice that the driver was limping around to have the problem rectified? How many times have similar incidents gone unpenalised? And, in a high-pressure sport, how can you penalise genuine human error? To take things to their absurd conclusion, if Renault is penalised for negligence, shouldn’t Brawn also be sanctioned for the part that flew off Barrichello’s car?
Though far safer than at any time in its history, motorsport is still a high-risk activity. Specifically, if one races open-cockpit, open-wheeled vehicles, the danger from flying debris is ever-present. That problem is not going to be solved by draconian penalties after the fact.