Sauber team boss Jonathan Wheatley has heaped praise on F1’s safety standards after Gabriel Bortleto walked away to avoid a huge crash at the end of the sprint at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Bortleto was attempting to overtake Alex Albon at Turn 1 on the final lap, but lost control as he veered to the inside of the track, colliding with a concrete wall and then into the outside barrier at high speed. The accident occurred in oily conditions and on slick tires, and most of Bortleto’s car was destroyed, but the Brazilian has since been evaluated at a medical centre.
“I have spoken to the director of the medical center and so far he appears to be perfectly fine and uninjured,” Wheatley told F1TV. “First of all, I think I have to say that the FIA has done a great job working with the teams on the safety side. I just saw it today. With a crash of that magnitude, the only way to get the driver back up and get him out is to go to the medical center and I’m sure he’ll be ready for qualifying, but I just don’t know about his car.”
Wheatley declined to speculate on the cause of the accident.
“It will be a while before we find out (the cause),” he said. “Of course we saw it happening and then we were waiting for the replay, but the first thought was to make sure the driver was okay. That was my focus after the session. I’m sure we’ll see that. Frankly, this looked like one of the biggest crashes I’ve seen in a while, and I’m just glad he was okay, and as I say, the safety standards in F1 are very impressive.”
Wheatley said it was unclear whether Sauber would be able to get its car ready for Bortolet in time for qualifying, as there were only three hours between the end of the sprint and the next track session at Interlagos.
“I don’t know either. We haven’t established that yet,” he said. “Obviously we’re just going to build a new car and we don’t have time to tinker with the car we have at the moment. We’ll just keep watching this space.”
“I think it’s a priority for him to get back in the car and get out.”
Nico Hulkenberg also crashed early in the sprint but was able to rejoin the race after the red flag, so Wheatley believes Sauber can still gain useful insight despite the accident.
“Nico ended up starting from the back of the grid. At least he got his car fixed and we got a little more information,” he said. “He did some running, took a little bit of a step back at one point, charged the battery and did a lap, which gave him a little more knowledge heading into qualifying.”
