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The issue of Turkish Grand Prix qualifying resuming with a recovery vehicle still in use will be raised again in Bahrain this week after an initial follow-up by Formula 1 drivers.
F1’s second qualifying segment at Istanbul started when the recovery of Nicholas Latifi’s Williams had not been completed, and double-waved yellows were deployed at Turn 8 for the drivers’ outlaps as the recovery vehicle was still in use and marshals were present in the run-off area.
Race director Michael Masi had said on Saturday in Turkey that it happened because he was informed by the clerk of the course the track should be clear in time, and that process was unexpectedly delayed, but no explanation has been given for why the session could not simply be delayed for that short amount of time to reduce the risk to zero.
Grand Prix Drivers Association director Sebastian Vettel called it a “zero tolerance mistake” on Sunday, shortly before Masi reiterated he was “more than comfortable” with the decision that was made based on the information communicated at the time.
On Thursday at Bahrain, Vettel reiterated his position and said it was necessary to address it properly to avoid the risk of a repeated mistake.
“Everybody knows what happened, and everybody knows why there should be a zero tolerance for this,” said Vettel.
“Obviously it was a mistake that it even got that far. It will be addressed. The main thing, whatever is coming out, is that you’re not seeing the same thing happening again, because we know the consequences it can have.
“That’s why I think it’s important to address it, which we will, from many sides, different angles. The key will be that we will not have something similar happening again.”
Vettel’s fellow GPDA director Romain Grosjean said on Thursday this week that it has already received attention and will be followed up again in Bahrain.
“Yes, there’s been some follow-up, and yes I believe it will be discussed at the drivers’ briefing,” said Grosjean when asked by The Race about the GPDA’s response to the matter in Bahrain on Thursday.
“All the drivers are aligned on this and we just want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Double-waved yellows were deployed as an emergency measure once it was known the recovery vehicle was still in use and marshals were present in the run-off area.
However, their suitability had been called into question two weeks prior, when they were missed by Lance Stroll during the race at Imola and as a result he arrived on a scene where marshals were working trackside at pretty much full-speed, while one was still on the track sweeping away debris.
Kimi Raikkonen, who was second on the scene in Turkey at the start of Q2, questioned the logic of officials who would think that to “expect us to go slow” was sufficient in those conditions.
“Especially how slippery it was, it doesn’t matter even if you go slow you can lose the car and it’s far from ideal,” said Raikkonen when asked by The Race.
“I think it would have been better to wait until they had pulled the car out and cleared the runoff areas because you never know.
“We can go slow for us but it still might be 120km/h or something like that and when you lose it in those conditions you have zero control where you are going to end up.
“It was only the outlap but we could have waited a few minutes longer and take zero risk.”
