"It probably only lasted a second, but it felt like an eternity"

In the event of an accident where a sea of flames develops, every second counts. Alan van der Merwe, the driver of the doctor's car, also knows that. He was very quick at the Grosjean accident and was surprised to see that the Frenchman crawled out of the wreckage under his own steam.

"It was also a big surprise for us, we have never seen so much fire and impact like this in the twelve years that I have been doing this now. So we first tried to process what was going on. It probably only lasted a second, but it felt like an eternity.

"But then Romain actually got out of the car under his own steam, which is unbelievable after an accident like this," when asked if he was relieved at once, he says the following: "We didn't feel relieved until we were back [in the paddock] and he turned out to be really okay. It shows that all the systems we've developed work."