The promoter of the Australian Grand Prix – the Australian Grand Prix Corporation – has said it will conduct an investigation alongside Victoria police over the fan invasion at the end of Sunday’s race.
The Grand Prix weekend in Melbourne attracted around a huge 450,000 fans over the entire event, with them eager to see F2 and F3 races for the first time in Albert Park alongside the showpiece F1 race.
Indeed, in many respects the weekend was a huge success as Melbourne once again put on a fine sporting show but towards the end of the Grand Prix there were some worrying scenes.
With cars still circulating, fans were seen climbing the fences around the side of the track and also appeared to have broken through security lines, in an eager bid to get onto the circuit for the post-race celebrations on the podium.
Access to the track after a race is permitted at many events but, of course, not until it is totally safe and there are no cars around, which obviously was not the case on Sunday.
Indeed, fans were also seen gathering around Nico Hulkenberg’s car, which had ground to a halt on the cool-down lap at the end of the Grand Prix and was displaying a red light, highlighting it might be unsafe due to a potential electrical discharge, and that was just another instance of a safety breach that could have ended far worse than it did.
With all of this in mind, the Australian Grand Prix Corporation was summoned to the stewards’ room after the race and the outcome of that is that a full review and investigation will be taken place into events at the conclusion of the GP, with the AGPC to present their findings to the FIA by the end of June.
The AGPC will conduct the review with the help of Victoria police to establish what went wrong and where things can be improved for next season, and hopefully we won’t see repeats of this again come the 2024 race.
Ultimately, the event on the whole was a really successful one with a bumper crowd enjoying some great action across the different championships on show and hopefully learnings can be taken from what happened at the end.
