Questions raised as recovery tractor on F1 track during Japanese GP

A recovery vehicle on the track before drivers had returned to the pits after a race suspension has led to safety questions raised at the Japanese Formula One Grand Prix.

Video footage from Pierre Gasly's Alpha Tauri showed that he passed the tractor after pitting early on, just as Sunday's race was red-flagged after a safety car phase and suspended amid heavy rain.

The incident brought back memories of the 2014 race on the same Suzuka track when Jules Bianchi's car slid off the track and hit a recovery vehicle in similarly wet conditions and the French driver later died of the injuries sustained.

Gasly was furious via team radio, saying the incident was "unacceptable".

Bianchi's father, Philippe Bianchi, was reportedly also shocked.

"No respect for the life of the driver. No respect for Jules' memory. Incredible," he was quoted by the BBC as saying on social media.

The ruling body FIA said that Gasly had been "driving at high speed to catch up to the field" and the "red flag was shown before Car 10 [Gasly] passed the location of the incident where it had been damaged the previous lap."

FIA said a little later that Gasly was under investigation for driving at up to 250kph under the red flag.

Spanish Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz, whose early crash due to aquaplaning had led to an advertising board hitting Gasly's car and sent him to the pits, was also not amused.

"Even behind a safety car we are going at 100 or 150kph and still at those speeds we don't see nothing," he told Sky TV.

"If one driver decides to get a bit out of the racing line or has a small aquaplaning or has to change a switch on the steering wheel and gets a bit out of line and hits a tractor, it's over.

"I still don't know why we keep risking, in these conditions, having a tractor on track. You were going to red flag it anyway, so why risk it?" he said.

McLaren driver Lando Norris tweeted: "How's this happened!? We lost a life in this situation years ago. We risk our lives, especially in conditions like this. We wanna race. But this ... Unacceptable."

Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer insisted that "the correct sequence" of must be observed in such cases and his Maclaren counterpart Andreas Seidl said it was "clear that what happened there absolutely must not happen."