Force India's deputy team principal Bob Fearnley has fiercely criticised the response of the circuit's fire crews to the Williams garage incident at the Spanish Grand Prix yesterday.
Pastor Maldonado took the chequered flag to give Williams their first taste of success for 132 races, their last back in Brazil in 2004, and becoming the first Venezuelan to win in F1 history.
But just 90 minutes after the race ended, as founder Sir Frank Williams gave a speech to every team member in the garage, a blaze, believed to have originated in the fuel area, quickly took hold.
As thick, acrid black smoke billowed from the garage, Williams personnel, along with those from Caterham and Force India in the neighbouring garages, fought to bring the blaze under control.
Once managed, Fearnley hit out at the laid back response of the fire crews at the Circuit de Catalunya and demanded that more attention is paid to how much training they receive.
"Incompetent would be a very polite way of saying what these people have done here today," Fearnley said. "There's no training, no procedures. I went down to see how my man is, and I had to fight my way in.
"We need to look seriously at the training of people at the circuits. I'm not impressed at all."
Meanwhile, Williams chief operations engineer Mark Gillan extended the team's gratitude to their rivals for their help in dealing with yesterday's fire which resulted in 31 team members being attended to by circuit medical centre staff, seven of whom remain in hospital.
"On behalf of Williams, I'd like to thank all of the team members from other teams for their help during the fire," Gillan said. "We were overwhelmed by the support. It was really impressive.
"Williams would like to say thanks to the teams, the FIA, FOM and all of those who came to help. It was a serious issue and I am very grateful indeed.
"What happened after a great result is very disappointing, but things were limited by the fast response of our team and everyone who helped."
He added that while the fire destroyed a significant amount of the equipment, he had no doubt they would be competing at the Moncao Grand Prix in just under a fortnight's time.
"We had a lot of damage and we have lost a lot of equipment, including IT equipment, Gillan continued. "Over the next couple of days we will be looking at where we are parts-wise.
"We will have everything we need to run operationally at Monaco, but we may be missing a few of the extras because obviously we don't carry a complete set of spares for everything."
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