A Formula One fan at the Australian Grand Prix suffered a cut to his arm when struck by a piece of debris from Kevin Magnussen’s car, prompting renewed scrutiny of safety protocols at Albert Park.
Will Sweet said he was standing with his fiancée on a packed hill just off turn two during Sunday’s race when the Danish Haas driver’s car hit the track-side barrier, sending tyre and debris into the air. “It slapped me in the arm and I was just standing there bleeding,” he told radio station 3AW. “My arm was covering where my neck would’ve been, but if that had hit my fiancée, it would’ve got her right in the head.”
Sweet said no race officials came to assist him, and that his fiancée was “borderline shell-shocked”. The incident echoes the 2001 Australian Grand Prix, when a track marshal was killed after being hit by a wheel from Jacques Villeneuve’s car.
Organisers were already under scrutiny after a large number of fans invaded the track near the end of the race. Stewards ordered the Australian Grand Prix Corporation (AGPC) to produce an urgent “remediation plan” in response to security failures that allowed spectators to access the track, some reaching Nico Hulkenberg’s parked Haas car. The AGPC admitted the situation was “unacceptable” and could have had “disastrous consequences”.
Stewards requested that the FIA refer the incident to its World Motor Sports Council to consider penalties. The AGPC has until 30 June to submit its review. Organisers said 131,124 spectators attended Sunday’s race, with a record total of 444,631 across the race week.
