Alfa Romeo driver Zhou Guanyu has called for Spa-Francorchamps to reinstate the chicane at its famous Eau Rouge corner, which was last used almost 30 years ago, following a second fatality at the circuit in four years.
Formula Regional European Championship driver Dilano Van ‘T Hoff died in a crash at the circuit on Saturday. The tragic accident occurred after a late Safety Car restart, when Van ‘T Hoff spun at the Kemmel kink in streaming wet conditions, and was struck by the car of rival Adam Fitzgerald.
The 18-year-old MP Motorsport driver died as a result of the crash while Fitzgerald was hospitalised.
The crash brought back memories of the death of Anthoine Hubert during a race in 2019. The Formula 2 driver suffered fatal injuries after he was struck by Juan-Manuel Correa at Raidillon, just a few hundred metres prior to the scene of last week’s fatal accident.
Hubert’s crash, which occured in dry conditions, led to changes to the run-off areas around the Eau Rouge and Raidillon complex. However Zhou – who was Hubert’s team mate on the Renault team’s junior driver programme at the time of his crash, believes more drastic changes are needed to the configuration of Eau Rouge and Raidillon, which is one of the fastest and most famous corner sequences used in F1.
“From my side, the track layout needs to change,” Zhou told media including RaceFans at Silverstone. “I lost a friend of mine in 2019 – Anthoine – so it kind of hurts there.
“It’s an iconic corner, for sure, but just for safety, we’ve lost too many lives in the past and I think it’s time [for change].”
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A slow chicane was installed at the corner in 1994, in response to a series of serious crashes including the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at Imola. Zhou believes installing a chicane of that type at the corner would make it safer.
“I saw some videos of, I think 1994, where there was a little slow chicane,” Zhou explained. “I think it’s the right way forward.
“I think the grandstand they can move backwards – they have space there. Still overtaking is possible, lap one, with the slipstream, but it’s a lower speed, so everything happens less straightforward.”
The lack of visibility from cars exiting Raidillon and onto the Kemmel Straight in full wet conditions is also a major safety concern, Zhou said.
“I think firstly, with the accident, they shouldn’t have restarted the race, because they did so many laps behind the Safety Car,” he said.
“It’s a bit like Suzuka last year for us. I didn’t know how we started the race. On lap one, I literally saw nothing. I was just guessing on the brake pedal where I should brake, starting further back on the grid – which is the case for the junior category. The visibility made people spin, they couldn’t see anything before a driver got T-boned.”
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Spa will hold the Belgian Grand Prix at the end of the month, supported by Formula 2 and Formula 3. Zhou believes the junior series should continue to race at the track, but said the difficulties posed by poor visibility need to be taken seriously.
“It depends on how much the spray is,” he said in response to a question from RaceFans. “Because you can’t base it on, let’s say, the Safety Car or the leader – you have to base it on the guy from P10 and downwards. That’s where you have the action and that’s where the visibility is really low. So we’d have to see.
“I’m sure Formula 1 and all the other categories are aware, but it’s too late. It’s happened in the past and a corner like that, you cannot see that much until you actually hit someone, which is not nice for us.”
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2023 British Grand Prix
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