French Formula One driver Pierre Gasly exploded at FIA, the global motorsport authority, on Sunday, after almost hitting a recovery vehicle on the track at the Suzuka Circuit during the Japanese Grand Prix.
With his visibility limited due to rainfall, Gasly passed the crane that had been deployed to recover Carlos Sainz’s car and immediately took to the radio to voice his concerns.
“God, what the... what the... what is this tractor? What is this tractor on track?” Gasly asked.
“This is unacceptable! Remember happened? Can’t believe this,” he added. “We don't want to see ever, a crane on the track.”
The incident immediately brought back memories to Gasly and others of the same Grand Prix in 2014.
After colliding with a recovery vehicle in wet conditions, Jules Bianchi suffered serious brain injuries and died a year later from his injuries.
“It is totally unacceptable,” said Red Bull boss Christian Horner.
“We lost Jules Bianchi here and that should never ever happen so there needs to be a full investigation why there was because it obviously shouldn't have been.”
“I think we got lucky. It’s unimaginable when you see something like that. Thankfully all the drivers are in one piece,” Horner added.
Reacting to the incident, the FIA said that the red flag had already been issued when the safety car went on the track.
Gasly was later ordered to go and see the stewards for driving too fast under red flag conditions and was caught on camera protesting to his team: “I could have killed myself, why is there a tractor out there?!”
He wasn’t the only driver surprised to see the vehicle on the track.
Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel also took to the radio after passing the crane and said: “Next time, they should inform us if there’s a fricking tractor on the road.”
“I know we're under Safety Car, but in turn 12, there's this…”
“I think we need to discuss a tractor on track. We can keep it short: this must not happen, guys,” Vettel demanded.
Lando Norris was one of the biggest critics of the debacle. “Wtf. How’s this happened!?” he wrote on Twitter.
“We lost a life in this situation years ago. We risk our lives, especially in conditions like this. We wanna race. But this… Unacceptable.”
Following his win in the race, defending champion Max Verstappen clinched the world championship title for the second year running.