George Russell crashed out at Turn 6 on the penultimate lap of the race, the same corner that saw Alex Albon write off his Williams chassis in Free Practice 1 on Friday.
Albon also found the fence there in last year’s race, triggering one of three red flags in that encounter.
Turn 6 is one of the corners reprofiled as part of a major upgrade to the Albert Park circuit ahead of F1’s return to Australia in 2022.
As part of that work, the right-hander was opened up, with drivers now carrying much higher speeds into the long run down Lakeside Drive.
However, drivers are concerned that incidents at that corner pose a safety issue.
Russell found his car pushed out into the middle of the race track, as did Albon last year.
This year, the Williams driver hit the fence on drivers’ right, having taken too much kerb on exit, which fired him across the track and then down into Turn 7 where he came to a rest.
Fernando Alonso also had an off during the weekend, though he escaped with nothing worse than a trip through the gravel.
“We’ve seen that corner last year, also with Alex, who crashed there. That barrier puts a car back on the circuit,” noted Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg.
“We need to look at that and change something there for the future because that’s really not good when you come around that corner and you have a car in the middle of the track.”
Daniel Ricciardo believes something needs to be done but hopes that doesn’t mean changing the corner itself.
“I love that corner,” he admitted when asked about it by Speedcafe.
“It’s a really, really fun corner. In quali, it’s downshift to sixth and pretty much get back to full throttle, so it’s a ballsy corner.
“The only thing I don’t like about it is, as we’ve seen, when you crash, you come back onto the track. So yes, I don’t like that scenario.
“From a pure driving experience, it’s an amazing corner, so I don’t want that to change.
“But, of course, the safety of it is bad. We saw last year with Albon as well… Unfortunately, that is a sort of corner that is very vulnerable for a big accident,” he added.
“If they have to change it, if that’s the only way to get the safety from it, then okay, yes, they should.
“But if they can make it safer but still keep the speed and everything of it, then that’s my vote.”
Concerns surrounding the corner were raised during drivers’ briefing for the Australian GP, on the Friday night of the event.
It’s a two-fold issue, with the barriers one concern and the kerbing another.
In Melbourne, drivers spoke about how, when ground effect cars bottom out, they lose significant amounts of grip.
“The issue is the kerb,” reasoned Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu.
“The moment you go a little bit over that kerb, [with the current cars], they bottom out and then basically there’s no room for you to take a wider line, like maybe Montreal or places like that.
“Take that kerb… you take it perfectly or you’re in the barrier.
“Then together with the blind corner… luckily, George didn’t have nobody behind because otherwise, I don’t see that car behind having a place to avoid this incident.”
The solution, therefore, appears to be a change to the kerbing and the barrier on the drivers’ left on the corner exit. That would likely necessitate removing a handful of trees to straighten out the barrier and increase the available run-off.
Whatever the fix, any change requires approval from the FIA, which homologates the track and defines the standard the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, promoter of the Australian Grand Prix, must meet.
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