The death of FRECA junior driver Dylan van’t Hoff has raised questions about the safety of the Spa circuit. Many racers, including Lanca Stroll and Max Verstappen, are calling for changes to certain chicanes, respectively run-out zones, but the second-named can’t sleep especially on another of the tracks – Jeddah. Why? “Because there is a series of dangerous turns where you can’t see anything,” says the Dutchman.
In Spa, Belgium, we lost our second competitor in four years. As in the case of Anthoin Hubert, in this case too it was unfortunately a young pilot who had his whole career and especially his life ahead of him.
After exiting the Spa – Raidillon section on the Kemmal Straight, Van’t Hoff lost control of his car and, due to the changeable conditions, hit the barriers, from which he then bounced back onto the track, where, unfortunately, he was hit by one of his rivals at high speed.
The death of the young pilot shook the entire motorsport world, including Lanca Stroll. The twenty-four-year-old Canadian, who also has Belgian roots, called for adequate changes to be made in response to the death of van’t Hoff.
Stroll especially does not like the current form of the legendary Eau Rouge corner, which is a challenge even for the most experienced riders. Verstappen agrees with the Aston Martin driver, but he considers another of the tracks to be much more dangerous than Spa – Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah.
“Eau Rouge is definitely quite a dangerous corner, but we also race in Jeddah, whose first sector is probably more dangerous in my opinion,” stated Verstappen. “I’m happy that nothing has happened in this sector so far because when you go through turns 6, 7 and 8 you can’t see anything and you don’t know what can happen. If there is a short circuit like in Belgium, it can turn out the same.”
“I remember at the beginning of the year me and my engineer were upset by Lando [Norris], which dangerously blocked me. So I know how it feels. It’s extremely dangerous when things like this happen. In Eau Rouge you go uphill, you can’t see anything, although of course this accident happened later.’
“The only thing that could improve the whole situation is to create more space, move the barriers further out, because at the moment it looks like when you hit a barrier, you bounce back onto the track quite easily. In this scenario, when there is no visibility and there is a lot of water on the track, it is obviously a big problem. It’s usually a bit better in the dry.”
After Hubert’s death, the barrier to the left of Eau Rouge is a little less. That way, the racers shouldn’t bounce back onto the track after hitting them, but we can see that it doesn’t work in practice.
“Thanks to the changes that have been made at Spa, it’s definitely a lot more open, but it’s always going to be a dangerous corner.” said the reigning champion. “But we race at a lot of tracks where there are dangerous corners that won’t be the talk of the day unless something happens in them.”
“Obviously it’s being talked about now but I think it’s a bit unfair to blame a particular track because I think you have to look at why the race was restarted in the first place [jazdilo sa totiž za dažďa a veľmi zlej viditeľnosti, pozn. red.]. It’s a big championship, with a big number of cars.”
“They are big talents who probably risk a bit more because they want to show that they are the best drivers in every race. Visibility was poor, there was nothing to see. You are going somewhere, but you don’t know where. There’s a lot of things that need to come together, there’s a lot that we need to improve.” he finished Verstappen.
2023-07-04 17:07:59
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