Full Throttle

F1’s driver safety union, the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, is concerned about Formula One’s forthcoming inaugural night race in Singapore.

The floodlit event, to be held on the streets of the Lion City at the end of next month, will take place without any prior pre-race testing under lights and that has GPDA concerned and allowed Toyota’s Jarno Trulli to bust out a carafe of whine.

“At the moment we still don’t know what the schedule of the weekend will be,” Toyota driver and GPDA stalwart Jarno Trulli told reporters at Valencia at the weekend.

“We are a little bit concerned,” the Italian admitted. “We go there, we haven’t tested, we don’t have any idea. It’s going to be a night race, it’s going to be the rainy season, so it’s not exactly what you really want from a safety point of view.

“It doesn’t look comfortable so far.”

Geesh, remind me again who’s allegedly the best drivers in the world? (Some make that claim, but I say the WRC pilots are, but I’ll leave that for now - ed.)

Trulli also made the claim it would be a waste of time comparing notes with the MotoGP riders who recently ran their first night event:

“Because riding a bike is different to driving a car. And they were racing on a circuit and we are racing on a street circuit. They had run-off and we have walls,” Trulli added.

Yeah but, it wouldn’t hurt would it Jarno? While there are major differences in the two disciplines one could get a feel for the lighting and any problems with glare caused by the lighting.

He could have taken a couple days from his less than normal packed schedule during F1’s break and checked the lighting in person. As one who’s spent a fair amount of time in the city I feel relatively confident in saying the locals would have been more than accommodating demonstrating what the circuit looks like at night.

Hell…, he may have been able to consult a local weather-guesser and learned the cities rainy season is from November to February, not late September. Too much to ask I suppose, better to look ill informed.

In fact today’s three day Singapore forecast is for early morning and afternoon thunder-boomers. That’s not to say it won’t rain during the event, but they will be isolated and generally light and shouldn’t concern the “best drivers in the world.”