A major oversight by FIA officials nearly led to tragedy right at the end of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, as last man to pit, Esteban Ocon, narrowly avoiding running over around 20 people that were allowed to cross the entry of the pit lane, on their way to the pit wall or a photographer’s stand place in front of the podium.
While everyone in the know was aware the Frenchman would eventually have to pit to put a new set of tyres, having completed the first 49 laps of his race on the Hard compound – in the hope a late Safety Car or Virtual Safety Car period would gift him a “free” pit stop that would allow him to score one or two points – some people at the FIA didn’t realize the Alpine driver was yet to pit and opened the access gate at the end of the pit building, with photographers flocking in, some to go direction to the stand in front of the podium, others going around barriers that had been just placed there, to take photos of cars and drivers as they stopped in Parc Fermé, right under the podium.
As Ocon was running in P9, 1m20s behind race leader Sérgio Pérez, the Mexican was less than half a minute from taking the checkered flag when the blue and pink car dived into the pits, while more than 20 people were crossing said pit lane, including some race officials who wanted to be in the pit wall to see the end of the race.Onboard footage taken from Ocon’s car shows he entered the pit lane access road at full speed, to see the pit lane blocked by a lot of people. Braking to 80 km/h to respect the speed limit in the pits, Ocon also had to slow down to avoid running over some of them, a couple of which can be seen jumping out of his way at the very last second – a very lucky escape for all.
Ocon, of course, was not impressed, admitting, “it was quite close, I had to lift off, I had to back off, so I would not have liked to have been the in the place of those that were there. I have to say at the speed that we are arriving, especially so close to the line, if I miss the braking point it is a big disaster, so that was a crazy moment.”
The Frenchman explained that, “arriving at 300kph, braking very late and seeing the barriers and the people all around it was crazy. It could have been a big, big one today and, definitely something that needs to be discussed as it is something we don’t want to see.”
A similar situation had occurred in last year’s Australian Grand Prix, when Alex Albon also pitted at the start of the last lap, the FIA took action and called its own representatives to explain what had gone wrong to the Stewards of the Meeting.
While noting, “that it was not unusual for the representatives to allow such persons into the pit lane just before the end of the race, in the usual course of preparation for parc ferme and the Podium ceremony”, the Stewards made it clear that, “in this case, there was one driver that had to pit in the last lap and this created a very dangerous situation for those that were in the pit lane at the time.”
Therefore, the Stewards, “considered that it was fortunate that there were no serious consequences on account of what happened today” and “stressed that the requirements of ensuring a safe and orderly event are paramount. This was acknowledged by the FIA team”, and we understand changes to the procedures are set to be introduced for next weekend’s Miami Grand Prix.
