Motorsport’s governing body the FIA will launch an investigation into how a race marshal was still on the track as cars hurtled towards him.
The incident took place just after a safety car period at the start of the Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz and Nico Hulkenberg had crashed on the grid with debris scattered across the straight.
The safety car was deployed to clear up the mess which had been done very promptly.
The lights on the safety car went out part way around the lap and the green flag was waved very quickly afterwards to re-start the race.
The procedure was done so quickly, that no on screen graphics were shown to display the race was about to re-start and the quick turnaround caught out not only the Sky Sports commentary team but also a race marshal who was still on track.
Replays show the man running away from the racing line and running down the road, off the track just yards away from race leader Nico Rosberg and the rest of the chasing field.
‘We take this very seriously.
‘We’re not trying to put the blame on single people. An FIA spokesman told Autosport Magazine.
‘Everything will be done to ensure this does not happen again.’
Autosport have reported that the marshal was instructed by a circuit official to go back on to the track after race control had called ‘track clear’, which is common FIA procedure to ensure no-one is still on track as the race re-starts.
Singapore Grand Prix race winner Nico Rosberg was the first driver to approach the circuit marshal and he said: ‘It was not a nice experience to see someone running across [the track] when I’m arriving at 300[km/h].
‘So I just made sure I drove through safely, but it was a bit of a hairy moment because I don’t think he saw us coming.’
His Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff added: ‘It was very dangerous, But we must give credit to race control because they restarted the race pretty quickly and this is what we have asked them, not to spend endless time behind he safety car.
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