at church cant watch the race yet. Did the stewards offer to move the race up? Whoever chose to not move the race up is gonna get heat if he dies.
I don't think so. This was a rainy race like any other.
Instead, I see the blame mostly with Whiting not calling a safety car under difficult track conditions and with a dangerous obstacle in one of the most difficult turns of the course.
Blame also lies on the teams being slow to switch to full rain tires, and on Jules himself, for not slowing to a safe speed in a double-yellow sector.
Possible safety improvements to prevent future accidents of this type:
Enforce strict speed limits in double-yellow zones (pit limiter engaged)
Equip recovery vehicles with crash-protection skirts (to prevent the body of an F1 car to get caught under the recovery vehicle, and the driver's head becoming a crash structure)
Add additional head protection to the cars, such as front roll-hoops or a canopy. In sight of the de Villota and Massa incidents, the latter doesn't sound so unreasonable, if it can be made to withstand sufficient impact stresses. On the other hand, it could hinder egress in case of an on-board fire, which are more frequent still, than accidents with head injury.
I don't think it's necessary to get the safety car on track every time a recovery vehicle is in use, but maybe some corners that are known to be accident prone should get a special treatment, or track conditions need to be taken into account.
If a car had a technical issue and is stopped somewhere, that drivers almost never crash, flags should easily be enough, but there are two corners in Suzuka where crashes are quite frequent, and with the run-off compromised, you'd think a safety car would be in everyone's interest. Frankly, I was more surprised we didn't get one here, than i was with Hungary's non-safety car when Perez rammed the pit wall.