How to prevent more tragedies? “Stop racing in the wet,” says Damon Hill
Teenage driver Dilano van 't Hoff died on Saturday at the famous Spa-Francorchamps circuit, in a Formula Regional European Championship race.
Anthoine Hubert lost his life at the same circuit four years ago.
“We are so sad to learn of the passing of Dilano van 't Hoff today at Spa-Francorchamps.
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 1, 2023
Dilano died in pursuit of his dream to reach the pinnacle of motorsport.
Along with the entire motorsport community, our thoughts are with his family and loved ones.”
Stefano Domenicali pic.twitter.com/Kn0gklf9RN
Hill, and Fernando Alonso, insist that racing in the wet is the most dangerous factor, as opposed to the Spa circuit itself.
“Anytime you’ve got a long straight and wet conditions, this can happen,” Hill was quoted by The Express.
“I was watching the F3 race earlier and they were going up to turn three, the guys at the back would have no idea what was going on in front of them.
“Wet conditions really are the worst contributor to this. Not being able to see where you're going and it sounds like he was hit the same way Anthoine was hit. That's a very large impact.
“What can we do about it? Stop racing in the wet, only race when you can see, or make cars indestructible in that way and make it more possible for drivers to survive.
“The FIA will be looking into all of those factors.
“I was as guilty as anyone, we were watching the F3 race and saying 'come on we want to see a wet race’.
“We want to see wet racing! It's exciting and action-packed but unfortunately it does conceal this terrible risk of something like that happening.”
Alonso added: “The visibility in wet conditions is incredible in single-seaters now.
“When we see red flags and delays, people at home don’t understand why we do that. It’s not for grip or because we cannot control the car. Of course we can.
“We cannot see anything. So if there’s a car in the middle of the straight, it’s a real danger.
“What happened should not be repeated.
“The spray of the cars needs to be studied to reduce it.
“I don’t know if Spa is the problem. At Monza it would be the same thing.
“If there’s a car in the middle of the straight you would not be able to see it. This is the real problem.”
Max Verstappen said: “I don’t think it was necessarily that corner. It can happen anywhere.
“We can look into the visibility and spray of the cars.
“I don’t think they should have restarted that race, if you look at how much water there was.
“Guys at the back have nothing to lose and just go flat-out, this is a young driver’s mentality. Fearless.”
Lance Stroll, however, believes that the Spa track layout must be changed to improve safety.
