Williams pits ’destroyed’ by post-race fire - Stanford

The day after marking its first win for eight years, the once-great Williams team is counting its losses.

"Everything in our garage is totally destroyed," said team manager Dickie Stanford, who mere hours after holding aloft the constructors’ trophy on the podium found himself wielding a fire extinguisher.

"Now I have to ensure that we have everything we need for Monte Carlo," he told Auto Motor und Sport.

It is believed rival teams have already offered to help Williams to get up to speed for Monaco by loaning the Oxfordshire based team any critical equipment.

It could have been worse. Although one fuel rig mechanic was pulled from the garage with his legs on fire, and airlifted to hospital, no one was critically injured in the biggest pit fire anybody had seen in F1 in recent memory.

The FW34 raced by Bruno Senna on Sunday, however, was in the garage at the time of the blaze and could be irreparably damaged.

Dozens of those who helped to put out the fire, wearing the shirts of teams up and down the smoke-filled pitlane, received treatment in the medical centre, and seven were in hospital overnight.

Photos showed grand prix winner Pastor Maldonado heroically carrying on his back to safety his 12-year-old cousin.