Max Verstappen thought that his car was on fire, after smelling smoke that was actually coming from a blaze 12 miles away from the circuit.
Tensions within the paddock are high in Jeddah, for reasons outside of racing. Midway into FP1, a thick black cloud of smoke could be seen from the Corniche Circuit. It confused a lot of people who were there at the track, who didn’t know exactly what was happening.
The smoke blew all the way over to the track, where Verstappen was on a flying lap. The Red Bull driver took to the team radio, to notify his race engineer that he could smell something burning.
A concerned Verstappen thought it was his car, but the team assured him that it wasn’t. Where the smell was coming from exactly, they didn’t know just then.
A little while later, news broke out that a massive explosion followed by a fire, took place at the Aramco facilities, just 12 miles away. Some reports also suggest that it was a drone strike carried about by the ‘Houthis’, which hasn’t been confirmed yet.
Max Verstappen and other F1 drivers want clarity on the situation
The primary concerns for all teams after the news of the explosion was their staff and drivers’ safety. As a result, the start of Fp2 got delayed, with F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali calling an emergency meeting.
In the meeting, all drivers and team principals were briefed on what was going on. In the end, they were told that it was safe to go ahead with the session, in spite of the off-track situation.
Soon after FP2 started, it was announced that there would be another meeting regarding the situation after the session. Whether the rest of the weekend will go ahead as planned, is not yet known.
Neither F1, nor the organizing committee of the Saudi Arabian GP have made any comment on the matter as of yet.
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