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Were The Fire Marshalls In Korea Too Inexperienced?

During last
Sunday’s Grand Prix of Korea, an incident happened where many fans and
journalists alike can say that something more has to be done about this
problem. This problem happens to be can the Marshalls of the Yeongam track put
out a car fire fast enough?

This was demonstrated
when Adrian Sutil of Force India struck Mark Webber’s Red Bull around turn
three of the course, and in the process, and punctured an area where oil began
to leak out onto the exhaust. The incident made Webber pull off to the side and
quickly exit the vehicle. Webber as all other drivers, has a small fire extinguisher
attached to the car, and when the Australian attempted to use it, it failed
miserably, and the flames increased as the track Marshalls simply looked at it
until a fire truck was dispatched to douse the flaming inferno.

It is great
that Webber escaped the car fast enough to avoid being seriously hurt, but the Marshalls
at the Yeongam International Circuit decided that the truck had to be sent out
onto the track, but misjudged the idea that the race was still going on under
the green flag. Here is a big truck heading to turn three and suddenly you have
high octane race cars right in back of it, wondering like everyone else, why
was the red flag not deployed?

The idea was
that the fire truck arrived and put the flames out. However, even Red Bull team
principal Christian Horner did not approve of the idea that because the car
burned for so long, it might be impossible to rebuild it for this week’s event
in Japan.

“From a safety point of view I was not really
worried because Mark got out of the car uninjured, which is the main
thing,” he said. “It’s just frustrating to see the car there becoming
a bigger and bigger inferno in what seemed to take an age to get some fire
extinguishers to it, but thankfully they got to it in the end.

“We need to get the car back and see what the damage
is. Obviously we carry a spare chassis and all the spare components that go
with it, but first of all we need to see what the damage is and whether the car
is badly wounded or whether it’s repairable.”

With the Grand Prix race already being on a provisional calendar
for next season, this incident does not make this picture too good for moral
boosting to renew this race for another year, and it is certain that Charlie
Whiting and the FIA will look into this matter, if this event has any chance of
being part of the world championship racing season.

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