Reuters: Formula One teams and circuits will change safety procedures to make sure a fire like the one that devastated the Williams garage at the Spanish Grand Prix 10 days ago does not happen again.
Williams’ chief operations engineer Mark Gillan told reporters at the Monaco Grand Prix that the Circuit de Catalunya blaze, that broke out as the team celebrated a first win in nearly eight years, destroyed 90 percent of their garage infrastructure.
He said one team employee was still being treated for burns in hospital in Britain and was likely to stay there for another 10 days.
Personnel from other teams in the pit lane helped to fight the fire and there was some criticism afterwards of the seemingly slow response time of the Barcelona circuit's emergency services.
Gillan said he attended the governing FIA's technical working group meeting on the following Friday to analyse the chain of events after the fire broke out in the team's fuel handling area. Although the exact cause was not known, they agreed measures needed to be revised.
"There will definitely be a change to circuit procedures. We have all agreed a certain level of cover at a circuit and that level of cover was in place [in Spain]. Collectively we need to look at the level of cover, both the fire and medical support, and undoubtedly things will change as a result of this," said Gillan.
Gillan said former world champions Williams had already made their own changes and informed the other teams of what they had done.
"It is a long list of procedures that we have issued to the other teams and FIA, just to ensure that something like that doesn't happen again," he said.
Williams would, however, be able to race as normal in the Mediterranean principality even if it is with something old, something borrowed and something new.
"We lost all the radios, all the intercom equipment, all the rack equipment, all the IT storage system. On Bruno [Senna]'s car, we lost pretty much every metallic component as well due to corrosion," said Gillan.
Brazilian Senna, nephew of the late triple champion Ayrton, said his car had been fully rebuilt.
"I think from the car that I raced in Barcelona, I have just the tub, that's the only same thing. Everything else was much corroded from the fire extinguisher foam and the dust so they stripped the whole car and put in everything new," said Senna.
The race-winning car used by Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado to secure the team's first win since 2004 had not been in the garage at the time and was undamaged.
Gillan said Williams still lacked a few things, such as a plentiful supply of radio sets, but other teams had lent them equipment to make sure they were able to go racing.
"It won't affect the running of the cars this weekend. In reality, you can run an F1 car with a laptop if you had to. You don't want to but we are back fully operative," he said.
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