So much confusion on this Friday
Formula 1’s return to China, five years after the last time, was anything but smooth. Friday’s Sprint qualifying ended in rain, a slippery track, and controversy over times that were canceled and then – in some cases – inserted back into the rankings. But before, both in free practice and in the first part of qualifying, fire – and not water – was the unexpected protagonist on the Shanghai track. In fact, both in the single hour of FP and during the SQ1 phase, a small fire broke out on the lawn outside the curve 5 sectionapparently spontaneous.
Escape route on fire
Flames – not even a few – blackened grass and white smoke rising into the sky. Then fortunately everything returned to normal in the space of a few minutes. A surreal situation given that none of the cars had had any technical problems – for example a failure of the power unit – that could have caused a fire at that point of the track, in the escape route. A initial explanation came from the federationwho in an official note underlined how “after an initial review of the videos, it seems that sparks coming from the cars started the fire in the grass escape route“.
The reasons for the fire
However, some doubts remain about the fact that grass, which is not even dry, can catch fire so easily. The suspicion – which however is currently unproven – is that it may have been treated with some substance which made it, for some reason, more flammable. The issue now is that of safety: it will be necessary to avoid a situation like this from recurring in the next few days, especially in the Sprint race on Saturday and in the GP on Sunday.
