So now the gun shot question is: is Red Bull ring a safe track? I bet that question will make the rounds the next few weeks.
It is not "safe" but that is a question of degree, since there will always be risks. The riders have been complaining about it for several years, to no avail. While there are other tracks having a high-speed left leading to a hairpin right (or vice-versa), this one is particularly extreme.
âââââ · Car racing track
www.google.ca
The corner in question is the one at top left. The "left" leading up to it is extremely gentle, which leads to it being done near top speed. Although it wasn't an issue in this particular incident, run-off doesn't look particularly generous, either.
Someone on Twitter pointed out that Honda Corner at Phillip Island is also like that - and I've ridden there and don't recall it being a particular issue - so I looked it up. Same scale as above map:
âââââ · Car racing track
www.google.ca
The corner in question: See "visitor centre" ... move your mouse pointer right until you get to an almost-180-degree hairpin right ... that's the one. It's not as tight as the hard right at Red Bull Ring, and the corner leading into it is an actual corner as opposed to a gentle sweep on a straightaway.
The other scary incident in this weekend's events was the crash in corner 1 in the Moto2 race. Bottom center of previously-posted track map. The issue there is that the corner exits slightly uphill then crests and drops off. The problem is that if someone goes down exiting that corner (as happened here) they can (and did) end up on the ground mid-track in a position not visible to subsequent riders exiting that corner.
Here's what you see as you are going through that corner - notice how the view of the wall on the opposite side drops out of view (and this is from the viewpoint of a StreetView camera way up high):
Google Maps
Fortunately, in that case, the rider slid to the right away from the path of subsequent riders. That's not guaranteed to happen.
Corner 3 at RedBullRing looks like the hairpin at Shannonville ... except you're not coming into the hairpin at Shannonville at 330 km/h.