A lot of drivers have spoken out against the FIA for the crane that entered the track for Carlos Sainz's stricken car, following his crash on the opening lap of the Japanese Grand Prix. Pierre Gasly appeared to have a near-miss with the crane when catching up to the back of the Safety Car train, causing him to come out with a furious rant over team radio . In the aftermath of the race Gasly elaborated on his comments, drawing on the previous experience Formula 1 has had with cranes on track when Jules Bianchi tragically lost his life hitting a stationary recovery vehicle during the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix. "We lost Jules already, we all lost an amazing guy, amazing driver for the reasons that we know. Eight years ago, on the same track in the same conditions with a crane," he told Sky Sports F1 . "How today can we see a crane, not even in the gravel, on the racetrack while we are still on the track? I don't understand that. "Obviously I got scared, if I would've lost the car in a similar way as Carlos the lap before, it doesn't matter the speed I would've died."
Perez: "Lowest point we've seen in the sport in years"
Sergio Perez shared the concerns of the other drivers, calling the incident the 'lowest point we've seen in the sport in years'. He added: "That's the lowest point we've seen in the sport in years. What happened today just makes me so angry. "I just hope that we never get to see this situation ever again, because it's putting all the driver at risk which is what happened with our friend Jules. "I don't care for the reason [why it was on track], it should never happen again ever in any [racing] category." Charles Leclerc also said that F1 should learn from its mistakes, given the grave consequences that could occur should a driver lose control of their car in the pack. "We shouldn’t see these type of things. Of course something happened in 2014, we all know that, and we should learn from that. "Max said it very well. Once you are first, it is actually quite okay but once you are behind, you can‘t see anything."
Vettel: "Today we are just lucky"
Sebastian Vettel believes that F1 is 'just lucky' that there wasn't any further incident that hurt any of the drivers, and thinks that everyone should've started on full wet tyres at the start. "What counts today is that Carlos is fine, we had a very strange circumstance and nothing happened, we got away with it. "There is a lot of things that led to this circumstance, first the entire grid leaves [starts] on the wrong tyre, which we are all to blame but then not all to blame because we are in the same pressured situation. "We have an Intermediate tyre that is a lot faster than an extreme [wet] tyre, the extreme is right for the conditions but it's so slow that you're pressured to go onto the next tyre. That needs to be improved [as] that would've solved the problem. "Visibility is close to none when you are in the car with the spray, so we're lucky that nothing happened but we need to understand [why] because it just must not happen."
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