The Singapore Grand Prix passed without major incident and we can all be grateful for that. However the potential for disaster was clear. There was a time when no circuit could be given a world championship F1 race until it had successfully staged a major international race. To me that seems like a very sensible rule and it is reprehensible that it was ever dropped. Alas now Bernie’s pursuit of the mighty dollar is the overriding factor in deciding which circuits appear on the calendar, so details like safety have dropped a long way down the pecking order. Valencia was given its grand prix then staged another race meeting to give its people some experience. Despite this it was only after Friday practice for the F1 race that the FIA could decide on which side of the track it should site pole position.

Singapore was unique for so many reasons. It was the first night race. It was the first race staged at that circuit. It was the first major race meeting organised and run by that country in decades. Despite all this it was decided that there was no need for a warm up they would just go straight into the show. What a mistake that proved to be. My initial concerns about racing under lights were quickly dispelled. The lighting people did a fabulous job, far superior to the Moto GP night race earlier in the season. We still have to see what happens when we get tropical rain, which will happen at some point if it keeps its current slot in the calendar.

Given the problems with ticketing and the website for this race I was less than optimistic about the safety provisions but they still managed to be far worse than anticipated. The pit entry was so bad that drivers were complaining about it after their first free practice runs. If it was that obvious to them why didn’t the people doing the safety inspection pick up on it? The Nick Heidfeld penalty was a complete joke. Short of being beamed aboard the Starship Enterprise I am at a loss to suggest what else Nick could have done. Had he stuck rigidly to the inside kerb he would have had to go so slowly he would have impeded Barrichello even more. Barrichello’s penalty simply proved that the pit entry was too short for a driver to take to in an emergency, meaning that any driver who hit serious mechanical problems at that point had the option of pitting and taking a penalty or crawling round the track being a safety hazard for one lap.

The pit exit was not great either causing trouble during practice but apparently not in the race itself. I have read that originally the track was meant to run clockwise but was changed to anti-clockwise for safety reasons. Whatever the background, serious changes need to be made for next season.

The track was also incredibly bumpy which part of me is quite happy about. It seems utterly ridiculous that the ultimate racing cars can’t cope with anything other than the surface of a billiard table. I have been lucky enough to have spent some time on race tracks and the bumps drivers complain about are utterly indiscernible in anything other than a single-seater. You can drive the circuit in a road car and it is like you are riding on air. Then you get into even the lowliest single-seater and get your fillings shaken out.

My biggest concern about Singapore relates to the marshals. Ever since the race was announced I have voiced my concerns about the marshals on several sites. The organising club has not run a major race in living memory. They had not run a race on that track and they certainly had not run any event at night. To me that sounded like a recipe for disaster. The marshals managed to fail to meet even my lowly expectations. On Friday there were a few very simple accidents with one car hitting a barrier and coming to rest effectively intact. The kind of basic recovery that every decent club circuit in the world can deal with easily. This grand prix circuit could not deal with it in less than 5 minutes. That is truly pathetic and dangerous. Twice over the weekend drivers sat in their cockpits for more than thirty seconds without a marshal ever appearing and at one point while a car was being recovered about ten of them were casually strolling beside the car. These people were not trained properly and I strongly suspect the training they did receive was so basic as to be completely useless.

I do not blame anyone associated with Singapore for these problems even if they should have given better training to their marshals. The blame lies squarely with the FIA. Why did they give a safety certificate to a circuit when the drivers took one lap to identify a major problem with the pit entry? Why when they changed the direction of the circuit did they not spot the obvious flaws with the pit entry and exit? Why did the FIA not properly assess the capability of the marshals? It is utterly unreasonable to expect the organising association to do this when they have not held a major race meeting in living memory. Why did the circuit inspectors not notice how bumpy the track was and inform the teams?

Given what we now know, the safety certificate for Singapore should be withdrawn until the faults have been rectified and whoever signed that safety certificate should not be allowed to carry out another safety inspection as he (they) is (are) completely incompetent. I have heard several people express the opinion that it was the first race so there were bound to be problems. I would ask those people if drivers should accept that, when they go to a track for the first time, the risk to their lives should be several times greater than necessary? Can you imagine what would have happened had there been a major accident at yesterday’s race? The marshals would not have coped and someone could have died. It is hard to believe that the safety certificate was issued by an organisation run by someone who we are constantly told has improved F1 safety by leaps and bounds. This weekend it leapt back to the dark ages in a single bound.