So, during the 2nd race at Townsville, there was a major fire in the Pit-Lane.
With 9 laps remaining in the race, Nick Percat in the #8 Elite Roads Holden came in to do his final pitstop. Before Percat had even come in, the feed line on the fuel hose came off and sprayed fuel everywhere. As a result, both the pit bay and the back of the car caught fire. The fire marshals, as well as several pit crews, rushed in to put out the fires on both the car and the pit bay, including both Red Bull Holden and DJR Team Penske.
The fire appeared to start when the car was dropped and it started moving off, although, to be fair, the fire would probably have started anyway, due to the hot exhaust on car #8. I want to give a massive thanks to the marshals and the teams who helped put out the fire for preventing a catastrophe.
Nick Percat would get back in the car and finish the race in 19th.
Fire is probably the one thing that scares Supercar drivers, as well as many of the fans. The incident is being jointly investigated by The Confederation of Australian Motor Sport, Supercars and Brad Jones Racing.
We'll wait for the results of the investigation, and I will report on the results and any potential punishments when they do come up, which is going to be before the next round of the championship.
So this is a truly scary situation, especially since the fuel was spilling before Percat arrived. Massive credit has to be given to everyone who helped put out the fires, and I would be curious as to any punishments that may be dealt out as a consequence, though if any were, it'd likely be team penalties.
Remember, re-fuelling fires have attracted massive penalties, most infamously, the 5-minute penalty Greg Murphy got in 2002 when Murphy was released from the jack too early and he pulled away with the fuel nozzle still in the car, causing the filler to tear away and spilling a ton of fuel into the pit-lane. Luckily there was no fire.
However, due to the race having already been run, it would be very difficult to calculate how a 5-minute penalty would impact the running order. For approximate notes, a 5-minute penalty applied at race pace (about 70-75 seconds at Townsville), would put Percat 4 laps down, but would only put Nick Percat one place behind, into the highest position of the bottom five behind David Reynolds. This is due to Percat already being 1 lap down.
I don't think, however, that Percat himself will be penalised. That being said, I could see the team getting walloped for it, since safety is paramount in motorsport, and this was a safety-related issue.
So, just some thoughts from me about this, what do you all think about what happened?
No comments:
Post a Comment