Horror crash wasn't the only near fatality in GP

Overlooked in the drama surrounding the horrifying accident of Haas driver Romain Grosjean was an equally scary moment late in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Racing Point driver Sergio Perez had broken down in the closing stages of the race, pulling off safely to the side of the track.

Although a small fire had broken out at the back of the car, Perez was clearly in no immediate danger as he climbed from the car.

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That didn't stop a fire marshal crossing the track right in front of the oncoming McLaren of Lando Norris.

"There's a guy f—ing running across the track," Norris said on the team radio.

"That's the bravest guy I've ever seen."

Although Norris had backed off after seeing waved yellow flags, he said after the race that the marshal had been hard to see given the race was taking place at night.

"It was the last thing I was expecting," Norris said.

"The guy didn't look left and right both ways before he crossed the road.

"It was a double yellow (flags). And I was going slow enough, so there was no point in risking anything at all.

"But he wasn't the most visible guy, because at that point, you know, I'm looking to the sky and he's wearing black or dark blue. He wasn't that easy to see, all I kind of saw was a bouncing extinguisher. It was just a bit of a crazy moment."

F1 race director Michael Masi said the marshal crossed the track without thinking, partly as a reaction to what had happened earlier in the race with Grosjean's crash.

"There was obviously another fire with Sergio Perez's car and a fire marshal reacted on his own instinct without any instruction and just saw fire," Masi said.

"And I would have said, particularly under the circumstances of what happened earlier, the priority was to put the fire out.

"The marshals have a very clear instruction. We've already debriefed about it immediately and will remind everyone you shouldn't cross the track.

"We'll reiterate that again for next week and get through. I think in the circumstances, is it great? No, it's not. But he sees a fire and he goes to put it out. So, I don't think we can castrate anyone, so to speak, for wanting to go and put a fire out, particularly after what we saw earlier and the enormity of the fire."

Track workers are not supposed to cross the track, a lesson learned the hard way at the 1977 South African Grand Prix, when Shadow driver Tom Pryce was killed after he struck a marshal who was attending a broken-down car. Pryce was estimated to have been travelling at 270kph when he hit the 19-year-old, who was running across the track as Pryce came over a blind brow, his view also obscured by another car.

The marshal's fire extinguisher struck Pryce's helmet, killing him instantly. His car continued down the straight before crashing at the first turn, while the marshal was so badly mutilated that he could only be identified by gathering all the other marshals and working out who was unaccounted for. The force of the impact threw the fire extinguisher over the grandstand and into an adjacent carpark.

More recently Ayrton Senna narrowly avoided hitting a marshal in the opening laps of the 1991 Monaco Grand Prix.

It's the latest in a series of incidents in recent races that has raised questions over track safety.

During the recent Turkish Grand Prix, qualifying was allowed to resume while a truck was still removing a stricken car from a gravel trap, reviving memories of the 2014 accident that killed Jules Bianchi in Japan.

And during a safety car period at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, cars were allowed to unlap themselves while marshals continued working to remove debris following an accident.

McLaren boss Andreas Seidl said he expects the FIA to get to the bottom of the latest incident.

"It's obviously concerning if you hear a comment like this from Lando over the radio," said Seidl.

"And it's clearly something that should absolutely not happen. But I think as well, it's something that's important to analyse behind closed doors together with the FIA.

"I'm sure Michael (Masi) is doing that, together with the input he wants from us. I'm sure the right conclusions will be made and we will keep working together on improving safety for our drivers and for all the marshals on the tracks worldwide."