George Russell has called for the FIA to show bold decision making amid serious safety concerns at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.
The Mercedes driver insisted the FIA, Formula One’s governing body, must not shy away from cancelling the race at Spa-Francorchamps after a swathe of drivers expressed concern their lives could be at risk because of poor visibility due to rain.
Russell is a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association and has been in constant communication with the FIA over safety at Spa, which has been under scrutiny since the 18-year-old Dutch driver Dilano van ’t Hoff was killed in a crash here in the Formula Regional European Championship (Freca) in early July.
Van ’t Hoff was involved in a multiple car accident in wet conditions with very poor visibility. With heavy rain all day on Thursday and similar expected across all three days of competition at Spa, which includes qualifying on Friday and the sprint race on Saturday, visibility is clearly going to be an issue once more.
In 2021 the race was called off in similar conditions and Russell called for the FIA to be decisive this weekend.
“Following recent events, the FIA have to be bold with their decisions when it comes to safety, when it comes to visibility,” he said. “Everybody wants to race but when you are going down that straight at over 200 miles an hour and you can’t see 50 metres in front of you, there will be huge incidents.”
Forty nine drivers have been killed here since 1924, including when Anthoine Hubert died four years ago in a multiple car crash in an F2 race going through the circuit’s Eau Rouge-Raidillon corner, which has attracted the most calls for changes to be made to improve its safety. Russell acknowledged the circuit was hazardous but emphasised that it was the issue of visibility that was crucial.
“If you put a ranking of risk of all of the circuits, Spa is one of the riskiest,” he said. “Then when you have the combination of the weather it is very challenging. It is the visibility, we have no visibility whatsoever. For perspective it’s like driving down the motorway in pouring rain and turning your windscreen wipers off, that’s how it feels.”
Russell’s concerns were echoed by other drivers including Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris and Valtteri Bottas and he was unequivocal the sport could not risk a repeat of Van ’t Hoff’s tragic accident.
“I felt with the incident that happened in Freca, it was only a matter of time before something like that happened,” he said. “Obviously, to have a race cancelled is not perfect for anybody, but we don’t want to see another huge incident like we’ve just seen.”
Ferrari’s Leclerc echoed his stance. “Visibility is really difficult to put into words what we are saying, apart from saying we are seeing nothing,” he said. “We really don’t see anything when it’s raining. This is a really big problem for Formula One, for motorsport in general. We have quite a bit of downforce and there is quite a lot of spray and this causes quite a lot of incidents because we cannot react to what is in front.”
