Following his accident in Melbourne, George Russell is calling for the introduction of an automatic safety system that warns of cars involved in accidents
George Russell’s spectacular accident at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne has sparked a new safety debate in Formula 1. After the Mercedes driver believes it took too long for the race to be neutralized by a virtual safety car following his accident, Russell is calling for consideration to be given to an automatic safety system that reacts immediately when crashed cars come to a halt on the track.
“I think we need to find a way that when a car gets into a danger zone, an automatic VSC is activated immediately – within half a second or so, because those seconds count,” says Russell.
“Lives are at stake. We’ve seen that time and time again at Spa in the past,” says Russell, referring to the fatal accidents involving Anthoine Hubert in Formula 2 2019 and Dilano van ‘t Hoff in the 2023 European Formula Regional Championship. In both cases, the cars that came to a halt there were hit by other cars at high speed.
Such a scenario also loomed in Melbourne after Russell’s car broke down on its side in the middle of the racing line. “That was an incredibly unpleasant situation,” said the Briton.
Stroll is warned by the race engineer
“You’re in a blind corner with cars approaching at 250 km/h, right on the racing line and the car is half upside down. I was waiting for a catastrophe to happen. Fortunately, I had a ten-second lead, and I think it was ten or twelve seconds before the virtual safety car came out.
At this point, Lance Stroll had already passed the scene of the accident. The Canadian had been warned about the incident over the radio by his race engineer. For Russell, it was pure luck that he was not hit by another car. “You can have five, six, seven cars within ten seconds. If that had happened on the first lap, there would probably have been several impacts, even under yellow flags. “
For the Mercedes driver, one thing is clear: “I think it’s time we took steps in this area with the technology we have. “
FIA is of the opinion: procedures were followed
The incident is currently under investigation by the FIA and could lead to a major change to the affected corner for the 2025 Australian Grand Prix. As for Russell’s request for an automated procedure as part of an update to the safety system for such incidents, the FIA believes that the existing procedures worked as required in this case.
A digital display board with yellow flags was activated 1.2 seconds after Russell hit the crash barrier, according to the FIA. A double yellow flag was waved 5.7 seconds after the start of the collision – including physical flags displayed by nearby stewards.
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After 8.1 seconds, the area of the route leading to the accident site was set to a double yellow state, which was also transmitted to the audio signals and cockpit displays of the individual vehicles.
It was also pointed out that an additional and significant visual problem in this situation is that it takes several seconds for the VSC system to be displayed on the TV screens after activation by race control
