Formula One drivers reacted with fury after AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly passed a tractor on the track at the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday, on the same Suzuka circuit where Jules Bianchi suffered a fatal accident in similar circumstances. 

Gasly said he “would be dead right now” if he had hit the vehicle, which was deployed to recover Carlos Sainz’s car after the Spaniard crashed in heavy rain on a chaotic first lap. French driver Bianchi suffered a fatal crash at Suzuka in October 2014 when he collided with a tractor crane that was recovering a car. He underwent emergency surgery and was placed in an induced coma, but never recovered and died in July 2015. Gasly called Sunday’s incident “not acceptable”. “We lost Jules eight years ago in similar conditions, with a crane on track in the gravel,” said the Frenchman.