Quote Originally Posted by Valve Bounce View Post
We had a discussion some years ago about the removal of cars from the track. I had advocated using a winch to drag a beached/damaged/crashed car off the track. However one of the members here, an active marshall , commented that would be unsafe as a rule of thumb is that another car could come off at the same location.
Under the circumstances, Sutil's car could have been winched off the track had a 4WD equipped with a winch and a Marshall deployed when the safety car was on track to slow all cars down and the area of the crash had NO cars about to come near. We are talking about seconds to attach a cable to the stricken car.

Under NO circumstances should a JCB be on the track until all cars were stopped. Who the blooming hell gave the OK for the JCB to go onto the track? This is incompetence and stupidity of the highest order, and should be the subject of an inquisition, not to mention a huge, huge fine for the Organisers of the race.
The Japanese are great sticklers for any time table, be it train or ship; but not to advance the race time or even postpone the race because of the oncoming typhoon is simply caused by not wanting to lose face. Well, somebody should draw the Organisers attention that the result of their incompetence has now resulted in a trajedy far worse than merely loss of face!
I am more than just saddened by Bianchi's injury; I am disgusted at the stupidity and incompetence of the Organisers responsible for this incident.
Wouldn't having a tense cable across part of the run-off area potentially be even more dangerous? Especially if the car was immobile, the dragging would cause more debris that would need to be picked up, more danger for Marshalls etc.. Not disagreeing with you that something needs to be looked into!