Lewis Hamilton says Romain Grosjean’s crash at the Bahrain Grand Prix is a “reminder” to those watching of how dangerous Formula 1 is.
The Haas driver careered into the barrier at high-speed on the run to Turn 4 on Lap 1, with his car splitting in half and bursting into flames upon impact.
Such was the severity of the accident, the survival cell around Grosjean’s cockpit was lodged in the barrier with Grosjean somehow able to escape quickly and with only minor burns and a possible broken rib upon initial evaluation.
The accident caused a delay of over an hour to clear the remains of the Haas and replace the barrier, with the pictures shown on the big screen over the pitlane leaving everyone a gasp.
“It was such a shocking image to see,” Hamilton said after going on to claim victory. “The thing is, when we arrive, when I get in the car, I know I’m taking a risk and I respect the dangers that are in this sport.
“I posted about it while we were in that break because it’s horrifying. The cockpit… I don’t know what G’s he pulled (early estimates are at 53G), but I’m just so grateful the Halo worked, grateful the barrier didn’t slice his head open or something like that, you know? It could have been so much worse.
“It’s a reminder to us and hopefully to the people that are watching that this is a dangerous sport and that is why we’re out there pushing to the limit and playing with that limit, but you also have to respect it.
“But it shows an amazing job Formula 1 has done, the FIA has done, over time to be able to walk away from something like that. It will be investigated and they will do a lot of work to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Second-placed Max Verstappen agreed on the shock level, with the accident among the scariest in recent F1 history.
“It was scary because we saw red flag but that doesn’t mean it’s immediately a bad thing,” the Dutchman explained.
“I saw a lot of fire and said ‘that’s not a good thing’. Luckily he’s OK, he will recover fastly.”
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, who is also one of the directors at the Grand Prix Drivers Association, would raise some concerns however over the failure of the Armco barrier.
“I haven’t looked at the images a lot as I didn’t want to, but the main thing is he got out,” Vettel, who finished 13th, was quoted by Motorsport Week.
“Obviously the guardrail is not supposed to fail like that, I mean it’s good the cars are safer than they used to be in the past but the guardrail shouldn’t fail and the car shouldn’t catch fire in that fashion.
“I don’t know what happened there. I think it’s difficult to say at this stage but the main thing is obviously that he got out.”