TBK-Light.com

If he got stuck in a slightly different angle or went through just a few inches less he would have been stuck.

The more you look at it, the more you realize how extremely lucky he was. How was he not knocked out because of the impact? How did he escape serious injury to his legs? Cockpit seems to be showing cracks.

You're right, it's more clear from that angle! Literally 20 degrees away from full entrapment.

Well even if that part got stuck, it's pretty easy: take a deep breath, remove the helmet, and squeeze through the side gap then?

I'd assume the drivers know where the quick release on the halo is and would have at least done some training in it wouldn't they?

There's been lots of mentions of Cevert/Koinigg (in commentary and articles etc) but none of McNish at Suzuka in 2002:



Big difference in going in backwards vs forwards. Forwards rips the barrier apart, backwards just punches straight through it.

I don't think any driver can bend that way from the cockpit to get out of the side, shoulders and pelvis might also get stuck there. But yeah, like micha said, the more you look at those pictures of damaged tub and the angle of car was trapped there, it's pretty obvious that luck was the main divider between miracle and nightmare. Sure, technology and safety devices and measures were all spot on, but with bad luck, this would have been cruel accident, maybe like Tetsuya Ota's horror crash at Fuji.




I don't think there's quick release for the halo, never heard about it. And why would they have it hooked up with such system that would make it come off easily?

_________________
"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

oh yeah the safety cell held up pretty good specially at the fire blast the for me was the critical part

now, there's been several ocasions that drivers thought they could get away from the runoff and the situation turned sour quickly like what happened with Hubert

is about time to at least issue time penalties for those who keep on the throttle out of the track and the reckless chopping

_________________
Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

I think there was talk about it but dont know if they actually introduced it. It would involve hinges and locks and thus creating massive weak spots.

But a quick release probably wouldnt have saved him if the tub was positioned in such a way he couldnt get out. That also means the halo wouldnt be able to move out of the way.

I could swear that they mentioned adding in a a quick release mechanism just in case. But all I've found is that the medical car is equipped with cutting tools in case of the unlikely deformation of the halo.

Looking at those photos of the survival cell, it's incredible too that he didn't suffer any injuries to his feet/legs from the impact.
All in all, the safety measures deserve the praise they are getting, but Grosjean's survival was nothing short of a miracle as this was an incident of inches and luck in a lot of aspects...

the opening is quite big for a driver to go through, but not enough to let big and solid debris like a wheel to get into

_________________
Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

I remember that too and I clearly remember calling it a weak spot back then as well.

if you see pics from the Kubica crash in Canada, his feet are exposed after first impact, he got damn lucky that nothing had happened

I guess after that one they made it mandatory to cover the whole body, even more because Robert is taller

_________________
Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

For all that went "wrong" there, the safety cell as a whole looks like it couldn't have help up more perfectly.

With Kubica, as with Correa and Hubert, the monocoque broke. It's not supposed to break, but you can't engineer a monocoque that won't ever break in any circumstance.



The back of it is broken quite badly, presumably because of the barrier. You can see it outlined in these photos at Atlas; https://forums.autosport.com/topic/2166 ... ?p=9307844

And then there is this gouge in the front (yellow highlight); https://forums.autosport.com/topic/2166 ... ?p=9308031

He is very lucky that it didn't shear completely and take his legs out in the way that Panis suffered in Montreal otherwise he would have had it.

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Very good findings! Thanks for sharing!

That yellow highlighted area is the seam of the tub, the halo goes around the whole tub there, so it's obviously the weak spot of the survival cell. I'm not certain, but this could be visible because fire might have burned the seam open. Or the forces of the impact that Halo did with the guardrail cracked the tub.

Why the tub broke and exposed the fuel bag is rather simple...carbon fibre doesn't like when it's twisted and the rear of the car is very heavy. Tub was stuck inside the guardrail so something had to give. Engine wanted to go different way than the tub, guardrail posts didn't want to leave their positions. While modern F1 safety cells are tougher than ever, there's always a limit of forces it can take. If Grosjean's earpiece registered 53G, then the tub has points that were stressed even more than that, absorbing away the energy from the driver. You can also see the floor of the car is on that rear end part, that too was ripped off from the tub.

JJ Lehto had a good point in Iltalehti F1 studio about Grosjean missing the shoe. Maybe he never removed his steering wheel and it took it off? Or it was stuck at pedal box, which could explain why it took so long for Romain to get out. Would also make sense since the front of the tub is clearly destroyed, maybe the pedals were torn off even.

There is also a huge dent on the right side of that rollbar. Both halo and rollbar are titanium, having a dent on them from a steel guardrail means significant force. While I was against the halo before, this is clearly the first fatal accident avoided thanks to it. You could debate about Leclerc incident, but this one it's obvious. Guardrail failed disastrously and car went through the layers of it, very rare thing to happen, but it did happen. In Bianchi's accident the rollbar was completely evaporated by the impact, this would quite certainly been the case yesterday too without the halo. Now we can speculate what cracked the tub underneath it but it seems pretty obvious to me, the halo took the impact and spread it around the the tub, breaking it more than just going through the guardrail.

And yes, 220km/h impact is quite a lot. Enough to break the barrier like that, enough to snap the safety cell to pieces when it lodges in like that.

_________________
"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

I cant find the video right now but Steiner said in an interview that Grosjean asked where the steering wheel was as he didnt remove it but it was gone from the cockpit.

Also, my initial thoughts where that he burned his hands and foot while climbing over the armco, which by then should probably be pretty hot, but the burns where on the outside of his hands.

Also, if you look closely the replay of the crash, you can see his hand on this video around 26 - 30 second marks raising from the flames. Next time you seem him is around 45 seconds when he's outside the car. He really was conscious all that the time but was stuck there.

And while every second feels eternity, you can see how at 1:54 he's trying to get out and that marshall is doing his job perfectly, blasting the stuff where the driver is located.



People judged the other marshall from the helicopter view for waiting...but I think he waited out for instructions of the medical car team, respecting the chain of command and not blasting his extinguisher empty on nothing. He was also under the wind, so heat and flames were moving at him. While he might look stupid on this video from that 1:54 marker, he was not in a good spot to do his work as bravely as Alan van der Merwe, Ian Roberts or the marshall next to him.

_________________
"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

Oh man totally forgot about that one. Still remains a bit of a mystery crash since there's no clear capture of the impact.

Digital F1-Coverage shows the impact [althought not that clearly + there's a short Feed-Cutout because the impact actually damaged some TV-Cables...]

Went in backwards, basically went through the guardrail, did a short cartwheel and landed the right way up.