At the end of Grand Prix in QatarOnce the adrenaline runs out, many riders collapse on the ground. They gave everything, even too much in a difficult race due to many factors, from the heat to the humidity, to the question of the three stops forced which led everyone to push like crazy for 57 laps. The FIA and Pirelli in Qatar, in order to protect the drivers from the risk of tire failure, they imposed a minimum limit of three pit stops. A condition that arises from the difficulties of a track that in the past, in 2021 had proven to be complex with those killer curbs. Furthermore, the fast corners subjected the drivers to greater effort. Everything was seasoned by Sprint race. And all of this, combined with the location of the Qatar Grand Prix, at the beginning of October, and not in late winter, has created a lethal mix.
Chaos in Qatar, drivers at the medical center and FIA blindfolded
We saw the consequences on and off the track. Between Russell and Norris with their hands outside the car at 300 km/h, and the visor raised because the high temperature was unbearable. An apnea, a suffering that lasted 57 laps, as if it were a qualifying marathon. There are those who couldn't resist for the entire duration of an infinite Grand Prix, like Sargeant. Those who were ill during the race but continued on, like Ocon who, after having a stomach ache on the fifteenth lap, continued to suffer in silence while attempting the feat. Those who collapsed after the race and were taken to the medical center were at risk of fainting. Or those who defined the race as real torture.
This goes beyond the individual limit of each driver, because we raced in truly prohibitive conditions, and nothing was done to avoid it. The only one who did something to protect himself and others was Sargeant himself.
The American driver had to withdraw before the end of the Grand Prix in Qatar because he reached the limit of his physical endurance. A choice he didn't want to make. There were no points at stake but there was much more at stake. And we realized it later when he got out of the car, feeling powerless. He used the last ones to angrily unfasten his helmet and to barely get out of the car. A choice that he himself didn't want to make because he was afraid of being judged as weak. And unfortunately it is a narrative that we already find somewhere in the media. A wrong, senseless, unfair narrative that does nothing but justify everything that isn't right. Because here it is not Sargeant who has made a fool of himself, but rather the FIA and F1.
Something needs to change
If we found ourselves with pilots at risk of fainting, at the medical center, dehydrated, exhausted, forced to do dangerous things – like taking both hands off the steering wheel at 300km/h or driving with the feeling of fainting at any moment without the concept of everything that is happening around it is precisely because this aspect is very often not calculated. It is thought that F1 drivers are risk takers and are therefore called to take risks even in these situations.
When you decide to do 24 races a year complete with Sprints. If you decide to race in the desert on a track that had already been criticized for safety and which forced Pirelli and the FIA to review the mandatory pit stops. When you do all this but don't look at the only sensible choice this weekend, Logan's, you're making a mistake. A more conscious and sensible choice than many other decisions perhaps taken by the FIA to protect, so to speak, the safety of the pilots who are now called upon to protect themselves.
