“It must be fixed for next season,” F1 Authorities call out promoters for unacceptable congestion at the Spanish Grand Prix
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Fans at the Spanish Grand Prix
The first lap of the Spanish Grand Prix was a chaos on the track with the Haas of Kevin Magnussen going into the gravel and Lewis Hamilton losing a tyre. But the entire weekend was even more chaotic for the fans who were there to watch the race.
After going through two roughly affected COVID-19 years, the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was sold out for the 2022 race. The fans were excited to watch the entire weekend, and more excited to watch the Spanish drivers on the grid; Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso.
Watch: The Internet’s Best Reactions to the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix
The weekend was on fire, however, there were many issues as the venue was just not enough to handle 300,000 people all of a sudden. Apparently, there was a huge crowd around the food stalls and washrooms. These conditions were worse on the qualifying day and race day. Traffic around the circuit came to a halt and there was not enough parking space around.
Along with this, the train station which was helping the fans transport also clogged because it wasn’t big enough and no one was prepared to deal with such a sell-out crowd.
To make things worse, the heat in Barcelona and around the stadium did not help. The mercury was around 35 degrees all the time that made it even difficult for the people to cope with the crowding and chaos. There were dangers of a stampede here and there.
Also read: Spanish Grand Prix 2022: Three key takeaways as Max Verstappen claims championship lead in Barcelona
Formula 1 authorities released a statement for the race organizers after the chaos.
Obviously, this mess wasn’t of any pleasure to the race fans who were gathered at the venue; many of them took on social media to voice their displeasure and discomfort while trying to enjoy the race.
Formula 1 authorities took this to notice and issued a statement for the race organizers saying these conditions for the fans are “not acceptable.”
“The huge number of fans at this event both inside and outside the circuit created the traffic issues for the fans,” an F1 statement said.
“We have made the promoter aware that this is not acceptable and must be fixed for next season,” quoted by Motorsport.
A few areas in the venue had been renovated, but many of the major arrangements were left untouched, which would hopefully be looked after before next year’s Grand Prix.
The fans went home after watching Carlos Sainz finish P4 in the Ferrari and Fernando Alonso on a recovery charge finishing P9 after starting from the back of the grid because of his 4th power unit change of the year.
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Gunaditya Tripathi
(274 Articles Published)