The Formula 1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix hit the headlines during a practice day Friday when a missile launched by the Houthi rebels in Yemen struck the North Jeddah Bulk Plant oil facility near the track. F1 went ahead with that practice (after a slight delay) and with Saturday’s practice and qualifying schedules, though, and one of those qualifying races saw Haas driver Mick Schumacher (son of seven-time F1 world champion Michael Schumacher) crash into a barrier at 170 miles per hour:
https://twitter.com/JustGregAllen/status/1507778933835669516
This led to qualifying being paused for almost an hour, including with the removal of debris. But fortunately, this doesn’t appear to have been that consequential for Schumacher:
Here’s more on this from Olly Allen of The Daily Mail:
‘I spoke with his Mum and kept her updated,’ Haas team principal Guenther Steiner said.
‘He has no injuries that you can see, but they want to do some scans to make sure there was no impact from the forces. The impact broke up the digital [technology] so we heard nothing [on the radio] but we got word he was conscious.’
This did lead to a lot of reactions from the F1 world, though:
https://twitter.com/LIMA6613/status/1507776574766166018
It’s good to hear that Schumacher appears to have come out of this without major injuries. We wish him all the best with his recovery.
Update: Haas confirmed later Saturday that Schumacher was released from hospital:
[The Daily Mail; TSN; image from @JustGregAllen on Twitter]