Rahal escapes injury in gantry drama.

Calls for Formula One to stop using Interlagos will intensify tonight after it emerged that Jaguar CEO Bobby Rahal narrowly avoided serious injury - or even death - in the circuit's pit-lane.

The American was among 40 Jaguar personnel working in the team's pit garage when a camera gantry collapsed, thankfully without hitting anyone below. The metalwork and heavy camera which was attached is reported to have missed Rahal by a matter of centimetres.

"That camera is so heavy that, if it had hit someone, they would almost certainly have been killed," Jaguar spokesman Nav Sidhu told journalists, "We were very lucky!"

The Milton Keynes based team has already been the victim of theft in Brazil this week, after several computers went missing from its paddock enclave, while Minardi has had a set of wheels taken from its garage. The Italian team has also reported that one of its number was the victim of a violent robbery in Sao Paulo earlier in the week.

Several other team members and sections of the media have called for the circuit - which was the subject of work between last year's race and this - to be axed from the schedule.