Motor Racing / British Grand Prix '92: Fisa to investigate track invasion

SILVERSTONE officials will have to report to the governing body, Fisa, on the crowd invasion at the end of yesterday's British Grand Prix. Roland Bruynseraede, Fisa's official starter and safety officer, said: 'I feared the worst. I have seen this before here and at Monza and it is up to us to stop it.'

The Fisa president, Max Mosley, said: 'I didn't really get a good view of the situation, but officials will make a full report and then we'll study it.'

A Silverstone spokesperson said: 'We expected the fans to come on the track, as they did last year, and made contingency plans to deal with it. But it was bigger than perhaps we or the police and stewards expected, and it came sooner than we expected.

'Once the police and stewards moved, the system worked. Soon they had the fans behind a line of stewards on the side of the track. Obviously, there will have to be an inquiry and I think some of the access points will have to be shut off. The problem there is that we have to have gaps in the fencing for safety reasons. The good thing is that no one was hurt.'

Mansell said he thought he hit a fan as he was mobbed by some of the more enthusiastic in a crowd estimated at anything up to 150,000. 'But he was all right,' the race winner said, 'and I'm certainly not going to knock the fans because they were just unbelievable.'

Martin Brundle, who also had to dodge the enthusiastic spectators as he crossed the finishing line in third place, admitted: 'It frightened me. We were still at racing speed.'