Medland: 'Inexcusable' Baku pitlane near-miss is wake-up call F1 needs

F1

Lax pitlane protocol nearly caused disaster in Baku after Esteban Ocon's late pitstop – Chris Medland says F1 must make sure to put worker safety and racing itself ahead of its glitz and glamour

10 Sergio Perez Red Bull 2023 Azerbaijan GP

Eagerness to set up the glitz and glamour in parc fermé nearly caused disaster in Baku

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There was much debate about the new sprint format over the Azerbaijan GP weekend, as Formula 1 continues to tinker with its offering and tries to find more ways to entertain fans.

And whatever your opinion on the sprint is, at least there’s some solace to be taken from the fact that it focuses around providing more competitive track action. But it also hints at a potential wider issue that was exemplified by Esteban Ocon’s final-lap pitstop on Sunday.

The point of that track action has always been to find out who can build the quickest F1 cars, and who can drive said cars the quickest. That pursuit has led to an immense marketing platform that can attract brands from around the world to spend tens of millions of pounds, but it’s all based around the core challenge.

One of the reasons I think the sprint divides opinion is because it is trying to find ways of creating situations that interfere with that very target. Some love it because there’s more excitement and uncertainty, others don’t because it feels like an attempt to manufacture drama that dilutes the previous main event on a Sunday, and trip up those doing the best job.

2 Esteban Ocon Alpine2023 Azerbaijan GP

Unconventional Ocon strategy caught out paddock staff

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Either way, the world evolves and for the sport to remain successful and relevant it needs to evolve with it, so I totally understand why there’s so much focus on new formats. What wider society deems acceptable has changed from the 1950s and so grand prix racing needs to change, too.

But there still needs to be a race at very centre of it all, because without the grand prix part, everything around F1 becomes pointless. Which brings me to Ocon’s pit stop.

I had an even-more-privileged position than usual this weekend in Baku, as I carried out trackside commentary duties for the fans in the grandstands round the circuit. That means I get to spend the weekend in a commentary box overlooking the grid and pit entry, although admittedly largely following the action on screens.

“What happened on the final lap was inexcusable”

Just like anyone watching the race just semi-closely, though, it was obvious that Ocon and Nico Hülkenberg needed to pit in the closing laps. And when Hülkenberg finally did so, it was an interesting quirk of the race to watch the Alpine driver running to the point that you knew he was coming in on the final lap.

Now, it’s somewhat understandable that many other people working at a grand prix are not able to follow the race, because their job carries different demands. But that doesn’t excuse what happened as the final lap began.

FIA employees started setting up the parc fermé barriers in the pitlane, and photographers were given approval to take up their positions on a platform on the pit wall that would allow them to take shots of the post-race celebrations and podium. They had been patiently waiting by a gate on the other side of the pit lane as they do every race, until given the green light to enter.

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Now, in many categories photographers are allowed in the pit lane even during the race itself, but at this point seeing them flooding out into the pit lane instantly suggested they were unaware that Ocon was set to come in.

Again, that’s not their fault as they’ve been constantly on the move to take photos throughout the race rather than watching it on screens like so many of the rest of us, but it was terrifying seeing the number of people in the way — as scrutineers also took up their positions by the parc fermé barrier for post-race — knowing that an F1 car was about to arrive at speed.

It was a massive breakdown in communication, because it was an unusual situation. In the past, all of the drivers would have made their pitstops, but nobody had alerted those getting on with their usual parc fermé work that something was different this time.

Something will need to be different next time, too. The FIA says it will make the necessary changes to procedures, and it needs to, because the race itself was being ignored in that instance. What was being prioritised at that very point in time was the post-race moments, how they would look and how they’d be handled. Well, what good are they without the race in the first place?

8 Sergio Perez Red Bull 2023 Azerbaijan GP

FIA says it will make the necessary changes to procedures

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The race needs to take precedence over everything else. Even disregarding the risk of injury or worse, you can’t have a driver whose result after two hours of racing could be compromised by the desire to have an aesthetically pleasing set-up for the top three celebrations ready as quickly as possible.

We’ve become accustomed to such high speed in F1 that Ocon’s onboard, as scary as it was, looks far more tame than the reality. An F1 car in a single lane at 50mph still arrives quickly, and with far less warning than you might think given the lack of an audible cue when a pitting car is drowned out by the field doing over 200mph on the other side of the pitwall.

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While the photographers were calm and used to such surroundings, not everyone was and there could easily have been a stumble when overwhelmed by adrenaline that left someone in Ocon’s path that little bit too long.

So what if drivers need to go a bit slower on their in-laps so that an extra 60 seconds can be taken to set-up parc fermé and personnel to take up their positions? What’s the harm in saying every car must have crossed the line before the pitlane can be accessed by anyone who isn’t in there during the race?

If the answer to the latter is that it won’t look great, or things might not be quite ready once a podium finisher wants to park up, that’s a far smaller price to pay than seeing a human collected by an F1 car on live television that’s broadcast around the world. Because with the aforementioned platform that F1 has, it can’t afford such mistakes to be made.

The urgency for post-race protocols can be traced back to wanting race results confirmed as quickly as possible and the whole sport needing to pack up and move onto the next event. The pairing of Baku with Miami will have meant a tight turnaround for the FIA and F1 once the race had finished, but it still needed to remember the race finishing part.

As the sport has grown, everything that surrounds it has grown too, to the point that there are a few instances of the race itself almost becoming secondary to commercially-driven aspects. Exploit the commercial opportunities all you want, but the final lap this weekend was a wake-up call about where the line needs to be drawn.

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