F1 counter Daniel Ricciardo's 'disgust' over "Hollywood" showing of Romain Grosjean crash

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F1 counter Ricciardo's 'disgust' over "Hollywood" showing of Grosjean crash

Australian was angered by the TV coverage of the incident

Ian Parkes

Monday 30 November 2020 13:38

Formula 1 has countered the critical comments of Daniel Ricciardo after the Renault driver slated the "Hollywood" portrayal of Romain Grosjean's horrific Bahrain Grand Prix crash.

Ricciardo was left angered by what he felt was the insensitive showing of the accident, particularly with drivers attempting to retain their focus on the race ahead of the restart.

The Australian said he was "disgusted and disappointed with Formula 1" for its showing of the crash and the incessant replays that followed.

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F1 has made clear it adheres to strict guidelines with regard to content following a frightening accident, and only allowed coverage to be aired once it was clear Grosjean was relatively unharmed.

An F1 spokesperson said: "Firstly, at F1 this isn’t about entertainment and a few procedures and protocols are in place before any decision to run a replay is made. Following an accident all onboards, helicopter feeds etcetera are cut.

"There are also direct communications between race control and broadcast centre. No footage is shown until there is confirmation a driver is okay.

"On this occasion, F1 only showed Romain once he was with an ambulance, his helmet off and he was walking with aid.

"There were no replays of the accident until approval and confirmation had come from race control, the FIA, that all persons were safe, this includes the driver, marshals and doctors. Only then were the replays started.

"The context of what a viewer sees and hears with the commentary is important with them talking about the safety of Romain, the halo, FIA safety improvements, and any update from the medical centre.

"There is a constant dialogue between F1, the FIA and race control, and sound judgement made with regard to viewers, families and those affected."

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner can understand both sides of the argument, but primarily felt that on this occasion as Grosjean escaped with only minor injuries that F1 was within its rights to replay the event.

“You can have two opinions here," said Steiner. "My opinion is it ended lucky, nothing bad happened so why not show it to make sure people understand? Yeah, it was bad, but everybody is okay. That was our [way of] how to deal with it.

“We wanted to get the news out as soon as possible to the people – Romain is okay guys - because it is difficult to contact all [of his] family, friends, people which ask, people of the teams. You have one message via TV and stuff like this is much more powerful.

“So I think showing it and showing him jumping out, yeah, it is dramatic but it ended well. As long as it ended good, fine, but if something bad happens it shouldn’t be shown.

“I am not an expert in TV ethics, but in my opinion, a good thing was shown. It was a bad accident but we got lucky and everything ended okay. I wouldn’t say ‘good’ because things like this don’t end good, it is just okay.”