In case you forgot about the horrendously conducted Baku Grand Prix in terms of safety, here’s a quick rundown of the events. Max Verstappen crashed because of tire failure and instead of getting out of the track through the nearest exit, he walked around the car inspecting it and kicked the damaged wheel before proceeding to walk across the track. Lance Stroll, another victim of the Pirelli tire failure, was calling for him to be removed from the DRS zone on the track.
Written by Abhishek Banerjee, edited by Janvi Unni
The whole race weekend had multiple red flag incidents and even had race marshals running across the track under green conditions. There was an incident where the majority of the drivers ignored the double yellow flags. Fortunately everyone was unharmed, but Race Director Michael Masi and the whole team of stewards need to be under the highest grade of an investigation by the FIA, World Motor Sport Council, and the Grand Prix Drivers Association.
Formula One Race Director Michael Masi assured McLaren F1 team that the issue would be brought up in the driver briefing before the French Grand Prix.
This weekend’s race was fairly uneventful from a pure safety perspective. Mick Schumacher hit the barriers during qualifying but walked away unhurt. Yuki Tsunoda also crashed into the barriers right at the start of qualifying after losing control of his car, but was unhurt and started the race from the pit exit. This is also the first race in 2021 where all 20 cars that started on the grid finished the race.
Maybe the fact that this was a permanent racing circuit instead of a street circuit helped in keeping incidents to a minimum. But no one can argue that safety should be taken seriously and it was refreshing to see a Grand Prix weekend where all the cars could compete and no one was in any serious danger while on track.
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