Horner saw pit lane incident happen: 'FIA needs to look at that'

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has shed light on the pit lane incident involving Alpine driver Esteban Ocon. The Frenchman still had to go in for his mandatory tyre change on the last lap of the race, but had to hit the brakes hard to avoid a collision with people on the tarmac. The FIA needs to look into it, according to Horner, he told GPblog and others.

The one-time race winner stayed on the hards as long as possible, hoping to pit for new tyres towards the end of the race under a safety car or red flag. Luck was not on his side, and so on the last lap of the Grand Prix, Ocon had to come in quickly to comply with the mandatory tyre change.

'FIA should look into it'

But things almost went wrong. The driver encountered a group of people on the tarmac in the pit lane. Ocon could only narrowly brake and saw people jump out in front of him. Horner saw it happen. According to the Briton, it was not Red Bull people trying to celebrate Perez's win:"I saw a bunch of photographers at the top of the pit lane and I think that's obviously something for the FIA to look at."

It could have ended very badly, the red Bull boss also saw. "I mean that's a safety issue, that’s an FIA issue, it's unusual somebody for somebody to pit that late, but it's in within his right to do so and you can see it was coming." How it could have happened? "it felt perhaps like an oversight," concluded the Brit.