The variety of followers and VIPs within the paddock in final 12 months’s race on the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez led to safety points, with spectators crowding hospitality items and accosting drivers.
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly seen any person had opened his backpack, whereas a few of his friends had additionally flagged that the variety of paddock dwellers had been uncontrolled.
Gasly raised the difficulty once more on the Italian GP, the place random folks had been knocking on his door contained in the Alpine hospitality.
Whereas F1 has labored to make the collection extra accessible, at sure races overcrowding has had the alternative impact of drivers being pressured to actively keep away from the paddock so as to have the ability to transfer round.
The Mexican GP organisers have now heeded the drivers’ calls and have labored with F1 to scale back the variety of folks roaming the paddock for this weekend’s race.
“We’ve got been working hand in hand with Method 1 to see how we will cut back the requests,” stated the race’s advertising director Rodrigo Sanchez.
“There are lots of requests from groups and sponsors which might be coming in and we’ve got to discover a solution to preserve these lists as small as doable, in order that we will have a way more snug surroundings within the paddock.”
The organisers have additionally put collectively a advertising marketing campaign to name on spectators to point out extra respect to drivers and impress on them that the paddock is a working space at the start. Plus, billboards across the metropolis have urged followers to go away the rivalries to the drivers on the observe.
Photograph by: Filip Cleeren
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“The paddock is a working space for the drivers and for the groups,” Sanchez defined.
“These few who’ve the privilege of having the ability to enter this restricted a part of the racetrack, ought to know the best way to behave in a sure means and ask them to have an exemplary behaviour. In any other case, the race can not work.”
The measures come after residence hero Sergio Perez’s team-mate Max Verstappen was booed ultimately weekend’s United States GP.
It’s understood Purple Bull has upped safety to guard Verstappen and different key workforce members, a protocol that can also be in place for the Dutchman’s residence race in Zandvoort.
“We’re utilizing safety as we at all times do and have labored with the promoter and F1 to make sure security of workforce and public alike,” an announcement from Purple Bull learn.