Motorsport safety was at the forefront of everyone’s minds in Fuji after the horrific events surrounding Jules Bianchi’s accident one week prior, with drivers and officials uniting for the #Forza Jules campaign in a show of solidarity.
Early in the week, concerns were raised by numerous drivers over the response by officials after the sudden heavy rainfall at the previous WEC round at COTA. Given the majority of the field who didn’t pit for wets were allowed an opportunity to un-lap themselves under red flags, many drivers believed the wrong message was being sent – as there remained no incentive to pit and be put at a disadvantage should the same incident re-occur.
Once the histrionics had settled down on twitter and the media centre, it was encouraging at least to see the refined Full Course Yellow ‘Slow Zone’ process (introduced at Le Mans this year) functioning during the race; with the regulatory 80km/h speed limit being keenly observed by most drivers.
One negative was the response to the fire that engulfed the #9 CLM/ Lotus of Christophe Bouchut as he was entering pit-lane, with Bouchut lucky to escape the inferno without injury after the Lotus suffered a low pressure fuel system failure.
Bouchut told Louise Beckett afterwards that he had smoke in the cockpit and “looked over his shoulder to see flames appearing”.
From the media centre we could see the Lotus was completely engulfed for well over a minute before marshals arrived. More concerning was that the entrance to pit-lane was still open to any driver deciding to pit.
When marshals did finally arrive, there seemed to be some confusion over proper procedure, with the fire also re-igniting before one of the Lotus mechanics managed to hit the kill switch.
Lessons to be learned, but there at least appears to be some cohesiveness in the right direction after some very nervous moments.