The Sao Paulo F1 Organisation, which promotes the Brazilian Grand Prix at the Interlagos circuit, have admitted failings in the safety and security arrangements after a track invasion at the end of the race.
The FIA stewards noted “a large group of spectators managed to break the security lines and accessed the run-off area at turn one while the race was finishing and cars were still on track.”Representatives of SPF1 met with the stewards after today’s race and agreed they had failed to prevent spectators gaining access to the track. “SPF1 candidly admitted the failures in terms of the security protocols and safety measures,” the stewards noted.
They also observed this was not the first time such a problem had occurred at this event. “SPF1 concurred with the FIA sporting delegate and the race director report and agreed that comparable circumstances already occurred in Brazil and that this was an unacceptable situation which could have had disastrous consequences.
“SPF1 stated, in mitigation, that they would conduct a thorough investigation and take steps to remediate in time for the next event in Brazil.”
The stewards ruled the promoter had failed to adhere to Article 12.2.1.h of the 2023 FIA International Sporting Code which forbids “any unsafe act or failure to take reasonable measures, thus resulting in an unsafe situation.”
The promoter said it will investigate the security breach and “present a formal remediation plan” to the FIA no later than the end of January next year.
The stewards have also referred the matter to the FIA World Motor Sports Council for further investigation. “As this relates to serious issues around safety and security, the stewards hereby request the FIA to review and comment on whether the above mentioned steps are adequate to address the concerns raised and to state if any further measure(s) need to be taken, as soon as possible,” they added.
This weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix was attended by a record 267,000 spectators across its three days, an average of 89,000 per day. On Friday, Formula 1 announced it had extended its contract with the promoter to keep the race on the calendar until at least 2030.
In April, the Australian Grand Prix promoter was also found to have failed to prevent an unauthorised track invasion during its round of the world championship in Melbourne.
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Jere (@jerejj)
6th November 2023, 6:40
Even though the invasion happened after everyone had passed the chequered flag (& thus not pushing anymore), like in Melbourne, such a situation is still always unacceptable, so I’m surprised this unusual situation has happened twice in the same season.
MacLeod (@macleod)
6th November 2023, 9:21
If you check the picture of yuki onboard you see people jumping onto the circuit while Yuki still had to drive to the pits.. Now i don’t know he was the last car but this shouldn’t happen (yet)
lynn-m
6th November 2023, 13:55
Does anyone know when did the attitude towards fans coming onto the track after the chequered flag change?
I recall in the past while it was perhaps discouraged it was also more accepted and we saw it when Senna won in 1993 for example which created one of the iconic images from F1’s past. Same with some of Mansell’s wins at Silverstone and many an Italian GP from the past.
Or maybe i’m just mis-remembering and race organisers were in trouble for those incidents as well?
Asd
6th November 2023, 16:26
I have no idea, right? And why are people like @jerejj so uptight about it I have no idea either.
If the attitude has changed indeed, then I’m disgusted with how sterile F1 has become.
People acting as if this was Monza 2000 (which was super cool!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkFcSECEQA0
Nick T.
6th November 2023, 18:40
Couldn’t agree more. F1 has become horribly sanitized (beyond common sense and beyond what the drivers or fans need to be safe) and it seems while fans first pushed back now, the tide has gone the other way with people trying to point out little places where safety was 99.999% and could have been 99.999999%, which makes the FIA feel like that they’re on the right track. For example, in 2019, Norris’ car broke down midway down exit of the pit lane and pulled onto the left hand grass in Canada in a place that no car could ever hit no matter how freakish the accident. They left the car there and stayed green. Now, that would be an automatic SC or VSC.