“The decision had to be made within seconds,” Marshals explain the delay during Carlos Sainz’s incident in Austria
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Carlos Sainz's engine blew up in the Austrian GP
After receiving harsh criticism for not acting quickly enough during last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix in Spielberg, the marshals have defended the way they handled Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz’s fire.
The Ferrari driver, who was driving in third place and had a fantastic chance to finish in second place because he was significantly faster than the driver in front of him, Max Verstappen, was forced to retire from the race at the Red Bull Ring. Sadly, with 12 laps remaining, Carlos Sainz’s Austrian Grand Prix came to an end because of a catastrophic power unit failure that caused a fire to start on his Ferrari F1-75.
Watch: Carlos Sainz’s lucky escape at the Austrian F1 GP
After Sainz’s scary incident, there was a contentious discussion, and the official safety team at the Austrian circuit wanted to clarify the situation. They released a statement outlining that all procedures were followed exactly as prescribed, even though it appeared on TV that things had been slow.
Sainz also said in an interview that he was calling out the marshals after his car had initially caught the fire to have one of them put something near the tyres to stop the car from rolling back on track, but according to the Spaniard that entire process was a bit slow and it took that one marshal time to help him get out of the flaming car.
Also read: Report: Ferrari will not compromise on performance despite F1-75’s reliability concerns
Carlos Sainz was safe after the incident
Even though Sainz was completely okay after the incident, the late response from the marshals could have made the situation much worse. “In such a situation, handheld fire extinguishers are absolutely not enough, which is why the fire extinguisher was put down and the car was called,” the officials defended themselves, as GPblog quoted them.
The marshals said Sainz’s Ferrari rolling backward made the situation considerably more challenging. At that time, Sainz could no longer maintain his foot on the brake as the fire spread quickly, necessitating the placement of a block behind the wheel.
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