Drivers "fully trust" FIA over safety contingency plans

Eifel Grand Prix

Drivers "fully trust" FIA over safety contingency plans

The FIA have relocated the medical helicopters to three kilometres from the circuit

Ian Parkes & Ewan Gale

Sunday 11 October 2020 08:04

AlphaTauri driver Daniil Kvyat has declared the drivers have "full trust" in the FIA after it announced new contingency plans aimed at ensuring the Eifel Grand Prix could go ahead following the cancellation of Friday's running.

Both practice sessions at the Nürburgring were fogged off as the medical helicopter was unable to fly to the nearest receiving hospital in Koblenz.

With that location around 45 minutes away by road, it exceeds by 25 minutes the time allowed by the FIA in case of an emergency.

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On Saturday morning the FIA announced the helicopters would be situated three kilometres away from the circuit at a lower-altitude location, so hopefully avoiding any fog, with an ambulance delivering any injured driver or team member to the new landing pad by road.

Kvyat has insisted the drivers are aware that health and safety are top of the FIA's agenda and that they had no qualms about the alternative arrangements.

"If they have found a good enough solution, a good enough hospital, good enough equipment and good enough doctors then, of course, no problem," he said. "That is how it used to be.

"It is important that health comes first, safety comes first, so I fully trust the FIA and the other people involved in this matter. We wouldn't accept this solution if we didn't have the same quality as there was before."

Kvyat has had a resurgence of form of late, scoring points in each of the previous three races as he looks to cement his place on the F1 grid for next season.

But after qualifying 13th on the sport's first return to the Nurburgring for seven years, the Russian conceded he was expecting to be closer to the midfield battle than was the case, particularly with trouble-free running.

"We didn't have many expectations but the gap is a little bit bigger to the top 10 than usual lately," he explained.

"Somehow, the characteristics of the track and the conditions didn't really help us. We just need to look at the data and look at what others were doing differently and why that was so because it has been a bit bigger than usual.

"I was quite happy with my lap, maybe a tenth or so [lost] but other than that, that was the story."

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