F1 News: Daniel Ricciardo Raises Las Vegas GP Questions - "There Is A Safety Concern"
Daniel Ricciardo raised significant safety concerns about the Las Vegas Grand Prix after a disrupted practice session caused by a loose drain cover. His comments bring into question Formula One's thoroughness in ensuring track safety.
Key Takeaways:
- Practice Session Incident: A loose drain cover during the first practice session resulted in substantial damage to Carlos Sainz's Ferrari and Esteban Ocon's Alpine, leading to a premature halt and a lengthy delay in the schedule.
- Concerns Over Safety and Financial Impacts: Ricciardo emphasised the importance of safety in the sport, along with the financial burden placed on teams due to such incidents. He questioned if the excitement of the new venue overshadowed necessary safety checks.
- Effect on Fans and Event Schedule: The delay in practice sessions led to fans being asked to leave early due to insufficient security staff, resulting in a unique situation of cars racing in front of empty grandstands.
In the wake of the Las Vegas Grand Prix's first practice session, which was marred by a loose drain cover, McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo expressed serious concerns about the event's preparedness and safety measures. He said:
"It's a fair question. We're like, yeah it's a late day, but two cars got ruined. Along with that there is a financial thing there for the teams, which is a big issue for them, but then you brought up the biggest issue which is safety.
"So fortunately Carlos is OK, but those things could be greater -- when I say greater I mean bigger consequences. I don't know, I think it's easy to say we did opening ceremonies and focused on other things and did they do their due diligence on the track?
"But with everything that happened today, you could ask some questions like did they do enough? That one for sure I can't side step, that is a safety concern, and we're here late but the safety one is something hopefully they will take pretty seriously."
Ricciardo also mentioned past incidents in other street circuits and the need for stringent safety checks:
"It [loose drain covers] happened in Monaco and Baku as well, it's obviously a street circuit thing, but I feel like permanent circuits have a certain criteria or whatever and a lot of boxes to tick and I feel like street circuits need a few more. It's hard when it's open to the public, but they obviously need to do that."
The disruption led to an unusual scenario for the fans and participants. Ricciardo added:
"That's a bummer, yeah. If we didn't do the FP2 it would have probably just been scrapped and we would have gone into FP3, so at least like this the fans got to watch it on TV. I'm trying to be positive! But it's obviously a difficult situation and I don't want to s--- on the sport, it's the first time here, it's a massive project and things unfortunately happened.
"I know no one wanted them to but I guess they did the best they could with what they had. I know it's late and everyone is probably a little bit grumpy, but at least we got some running done."