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There was side story behind the Schumi hoopla at Monza 2006 - the safety outcry by the GPDA and the intansigence of the track organizers and the FIA to the suggestion of safety changes required.
Will there be a chance for Imola or Suzuka or Hockenheim to come back into the frey should an impasse happen at Monza ?
Hungaroring 2006: Honda Stopped Dreaming & Got On With It!
I wouldn’t call exactly “intransigence of track’s organizers”. I heard directly from Daniele Galbiati, race director of the Monza’s circuit, the week after the race, that he found that story about Gpda not being happy with Monza’s safety on newspapers. Nobody, from Gpda or FIA, told him or other people responsible for the circuit, about that problem during the weekend.
In the recent years, from late ‘90s, Monza track had to make an infinite quantity of modifications, every single year there was the request to add a further meter of gravel trap here or there, and Monza always did, in spite of the fact that every time it meant to have a fight with treehuggers and circuit’s haters, the track was always modified as requested. Also when it was asked to make a new pits building, paddock club area, etc etc.
When drivers thought the old first chicane was dangerous it was modified and made as drivers asked it to be, and yet in 2001, the day after Zanardi’s accident, they started to think that that design was maybe dangerous too...
In Monza when a car stops on the track, being it for a mechanical problem or for an accident, it’s removed in a matter of seconds, you don’t need safety car to remove a car that spun and stopped on the track.
Monza is one of the few tracks where, even for testing, the safety crew is up to standard, there are ambulances in different places and there’s also the helicopter ready to carry the driver wherever it’s needed. (Monza’s hospital is just 500 meters from the track, but Milan hospital is more specialized for example for head traumas, and in fact Ralf was carried there with the helicopter after the incident in 2003)
Monza always did for safety everything FIA and Gpda asked for, but it’s difficult to do something other wants when nobody tell you that you have to do it.
