MARCH 31, 2002

Medical car near miss

FORMULA 1 had a near-miss during the Sunday morning warm-up in Sao Paulo when the FIA Medical Car was despatched to deal with a big accident involving Enrique Bernoldi.

The crash happened at the second corner, right by the pitlane exit and so the Mercedes medical car arrived at the scene very quickly and pulled up as usual. The red flags were just coming out when Nick Heidfeld came down the hill and found Bernoldi's wrecked Arrows in the middle of the road, a slowing Michael Schumacher on the right hand side and only a small gap between the Arrows and the barrier.

The Sauber driver aimed for this gap but as he did so the door of the medical car (parked beyond the Arrows) was being opened by the driver, former F1 driver Alex Ribiero. Heidfeld's car hit the door of the medical car and the tire barrier on the inside of the track, damaging both sides of the car's front suspension. Ribiero was lucky not to have stepped out of the car. If he had done so he would have been hit by Heidfeld.