F1 Fanatic

The ninth round of the ADAC Formel Masters championship at the Sachsenring was abandoned yesterday after two drivers crashed while a car was being recovered, at least one hitting a course car.

Marshals were recovering Nicolas Pohler’s car when their vehicle was struck by Florian Herzog. That collision can be seen in this video:

According to the report on the series’ website, Kim-Alexander Giersiepen also collided with the car that was being recovered, though that doesn’t appear in the video.

No reports of any serious injuries, though Giersiepen was taken for a check-up.

What also isn’t clear from the video is whether the recovery was being done under local yellows or the safety car. Either way, it’s a pretty serious lapse in driving standards and those involved – especially the marshals – are fortunate to be unhurt.

Shocking. If the car was being recovered under double yellows then that was a very bad decision by the organisers. But even if that was the case, drivers are supposed to drive to a speed where they can stop very quickly if something (or someone) is on track in front of them. But you can see that everyone (not just the guy who crashed) was going too quickly. After the crash the drivers behind were slewing all over the place, unable to come to a controlled stop as you would expect under double yellows.

I hope everyone involved is properly punished or it’ll only be a matter of time before someone (probably an innocent marshal) gets seriously hurt.

I can’t see any “SC” boards so it looks like it was just a local yellow, but that is a ridiculous decision by the organisers, having a car recovered on one of the fastest parts of the circuit with only a local yellow in place. Having said that, a lot of the drivers should have slowed down a more, because double waved yellows mean “no overtaking, slow down and prepare to stop”, not continue racing as if nothing’s happened and hope you don’t hit a safety vehicle in the process…

The report I read in a German language magazine stated clearly that there was no safety car on the track, the crash was cleared up with waved double yellow flags out, which means the track may be partially blocked and all drivers entering the area should be able to stop at any time.

If those flags were clearly visible, which I have no reason to doubt, the speed the drivers are taking through this passage would still have been too high.

Since it’s a junior series with young, inexperienced pilots, I’d recommend deploying a safety car if you need to place a support vehicle on the track, though, precisely because you cannot risk any of these guys getting it wrong, misjudging the conditions or failing to pay attention to the flags and causing an accident.

There was, apparently, a second incident, which is not shown in the video, where a car hit the vehicle more significantly.

Oh my god, that second one was vastly more scary! That driver was incredibly lucky not to lose his head on the back bumper of the SUV. Here’s hoping this spurs an immediate change in safety procedures in that corner.