Full Throttle

For some reason I don’t really buy this: “FIA satisfied with handling of Schumacher crash.”

Formula One’s governing body says it is satisfied that marshals and emergency medical teams handled Ralf Schumacher’s crash in Sunday’s U.S. Grand Prix correctly.

An International Automobile Federation (FIA) spokesman also justified on Wednesday the decision not to stop the race at Indianapolis.

“The safety car, medical car and fast intervention cars were deployed by race control without delay and the first car to reach the incident was the closest emergency medical vehicle,” the spokesman said.

“We require emergency medical personnel to arrive at an incident within two minutes. This was achieved and we were therefore satisfied with the response time.”

I will be the first to admit, I had no stopwatch on the emergency response, but it sure seemed as if it were an eternity before they arrived.

Some observers believed it took doctors closer to three minutes to attend to the German, who remained slumped in the car on the start-finish straight and is doubtful for the next two races.

“I’m disappointed if he was sitting there for a few minutes because that’s life or death stuff,” McLaren’s David Coulthard told reporters on Sunday. “That needs to be looked at.”

The FIA spokesman said marshals had followed the correct procedures however. “Track marshals and non-medical personnel attending the scene are specifically instructed not to touch a driver and to wait for medical experts to arrive,” he said.

“3 minutes”, that sounds closer to my perception. I think a little ass kissing is in play here. F1 badly needs the North American market, and Indy is the premiere circuit in terms of name recognition and prestige. In the ever political world of the F1 Circus it wouldn’t pay to many dividends for Bernie to piss off Tony George.