Esteban Ocon has revealed that the FIA has issued an apology to him after his close call entering the pit lane last weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Ocon pitted late on in the race, swapping the Hard tyres that he had used since the start for a fresh set of Softs.
However, upon entering the pit lane, he was met with a wall of personnel that were forced to quickly jump out of the way.
The stewards summoned FIA representatives after the race to uncover how the situation unfolded, concluding that “it was not unusual for the representatives to allow such persons into the pit lane just before the end of the race”.
It added that “in this case, there was one driver that had to pit in the last lap and this created a very dangerous situation for those that were in the pit lane at the time.
“We walked through the relevant procedures and protocol with the FIA representatives in detail and required them to take immediate steps to reconsider these procedures and protocols with the relevant stakeholders (including FOM, the teams and the FIA) to ensure that this situation does not occur again.”
In addition, it has spoken to Ocon and apologised for the incident.
“The FIA has apologised, and Formula 1,” the Alpine driver told Sky F1.
“They assured us that this is not going to happen anymore. Thank God nothing happened and so all good from now.
“We are racing at the time. It’s of course normal that there shouldn’t be anyone in the pit lane until after we are racing like that.
“These things are normally not going to happen, the FIA has assured us that they are making sure they are changing the protocol and making sure there is no one in the pit lane until the end, so I’m confident we will not see that anymore.”
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