The FIA are set to take a closer look at the crash between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton at the Italian Grand Prix, due to the potentially serious outcome the accident could have had.
While innocuous at first glance, the Verstappen/Hamilton clash on Lap 26 of the Monza race could have had very serious consequences as Verstappen’s car came to rest on Hamilton’s Halo cockpit protection system and made contact with his helmet.
It’s this potential outcome that has led the FIA to decide that their Safety Department will investigate the accident.
“Incidents that are different, so it’s not necessarily high G impacts or anything like that, but are unusual, we do look at,” said FIA Race Director Michael Masi to media.
The FIA’s Safety Department was set up to analyse serious accidents in order to generate relevant learnings and applicable solutions to safety concerns.
“Our Safety Department does look at them in detail, investigate, and see what we can learn and what we can improve for the future,” Masi said.
“That’s how we have a whole lot of the safety features that we have today, and will continue to evolve into the future.
“We are already collecting all of the data, so we have all of the information, and that will all go to our Safety Department, together with any photographs and anything else we have along the way.”
Despite it being Verstappen and Hamilton’s second collision in five races, Masi said there was nothing untoward about the Italian GP incident that warranted special treatment or intervention from him or the stewards.
“They’re in a very tight championship fight, two fantastic drivers and they’re extremely close,” he said.
“Once you are in that situation, both drivers will take more risks one way or the other.
“There wasn’t anything, in our perspective, silly – the stewards looked at it in exactly the same manner as they would any other incident and decided that one driver was predominantly to blame.”
