TBK-Light.com

Now that we know he's alright and everything, which I am happy about, I hope he reconsiders his chopping skills if he's to race at Indy and Texas next year

I missed the live broadcoast of the crash by about 2 minutes. I literally turned on the stream and all I heard was the commentators talking about an F1 car exploding and how unheard of that is these days and how a car made contact with the barriers. Honestly at first I thought it was some kind of pit road mishap. That fuel got spilled and got ignited. Then I saw the replay. Then I saw how the car split in 2 and how the first half went literally THROUGH the barriers. Not only that but Grosjean got out of it fast enough.

At times I think that motorsport has a special angel watching out for it. There have been so many incidents throughout the years where things could have gone so much worse and they didn't.

Geoff Bodine Daytona
Austin Dillon Daytona
Ryan Newman Daytona
Kyle Larson Daytona
Mike Harmon Bristol
Scott Dixon Indy
Support series crashes like that one at Macua with the car doing a Yokoyama.
The list goes on

All it takes is one horrible incident, especially one being broadcast live around the world, for motorsport to change forever. I'm absolutely shocked it hasn't happened yet. It almost happened today. Thank god for good engineers.

Perhaps not decapitation, but definitely something very bad. The top of the monocoque ran right under the top layer of armco, and scraped up over the halo. The halo is designed to withstand 12 tons of load; the driver's helmet is not.

Seeing the race now, from that heli replay of the crash, the way that it looks... I'm having a hard time trying to convince my brain that this isn't a footage of an instantly fatal crash. The car impaled on the wall, and busted into a lot of flames. It looks like he was trapped there. Unbelievable.

I just want to mention that I am happy that medical car is doing his own first lap with drivers. If it was any other lap, medical car would just go out from the pitlane, which means Grosjean would be left with one marshall which was extinguishing concrete something like 3 meters from the fire
EDIT: Oh, I see that JJ already posted that info too

_________________

ALPINE SKIING CRASHES SPREADSHEET

When I saw the car flash across the screen, into the barrier and burst into flames, I thought whoever was driving it was dead. I thought it was a Williams at first and honestly I briefly started wording a George Russell tribute in my head. I thought there was no way they could survive - not so much from the fire, but the sudden deceleration, because you could see the rear of the car just come to a stop, and it had to have been a huge impact to cause such a massive fire. I was actually relatively calm for a few seconds because I was so convinced

I can now totally understand that clip of Colin Chapman after Francois Cevert's death - that's basically how I felt: https://youtu.be/qQ8zds44cqI?t=60

Looking at the replay again from the trackside camera, he first tried to get out from the top of the Halo as usual, felt blocked by the barrier, then went for the gap on the side of the Halo! Which was the only clear way out.

Very good job by design to have made that lateral gap large enough to fit a driver. This makes the Indy canopy a bit concerning. He'd have not had a way out if the canopy was stuck exactly the same way.

A canopy would've buckled under the pressure or melted. I think it would've been worse in this scenario.

It would have stood up to the guardrail as it does have the same strengthening strut in the centre.

Yeah, agreed, plus would the screen itself (as opposed to the support over the top) have been strong enough to deflect the armco?

I think we all did today. When you've seen similar explosions in fatal accidents like that of Swede Savage or Gordon Smiley, you instantly think no human body can withstand that kind of blast. So it's a true miracle Grosjean will be able to tell his story. I'm sure this accident will be brought up in every longer interview for the rest of his life.

Walls at 45 degrees to a race track is a bad idea and this crash reaffirmed this

_________________
Follow me on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/135625678@N06/

The wall is not remotely 45 degrees angle to the track. Grosjean's angle of impact was somewhere near 45 degrees due to the contact with Kvyat, but track barriers are always designed with a certain set of possible car trajectories in mind; the direction the Haas went almost certainly wasn't one of them, and I don't think a car has ever gone off there at that angle. Tracks need angled walls to allow for marshal entry and exit, and the angle is maybe 10 degrees into the track vs a standard straight closed barrier. I doubt the angle had much to do with the severity of the wreck.

The use of armco is something that needs serious investigation though, I can't imagine how any open cockpit series let alone what's supposed to be the very pinnacle would approve a track for use with Armco anywhere, even the unlikely bits. It's excusable for a saloon or closed cockpit series, but there have been enough examples across the last 50 years of what happens to an open cockpit car in a head-on collision with a guardrail to not keep repeating it.

_________________

Ah yes I checked the satellite view its more like 20 degrees

_________________
Follow me on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/135625678@N06/

While watching the pace lap, when the heli cam showed the straight before last turn, I saw 6 angled armco barriers and thought "wow, they don't normally tangle mid straight, but if they do, it will be nasty...". This must have been a sixth sense into what was going to happen.

Edit:

This shot, actually 8 angled armco barriers.


I just hope that the external ring race goes without any trouble.

I think it's possible to have openings in the wall without using bad angles. I looked at Talladega for an example and the backstretch wall only has a small angle where safety vehicles pull through:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.565225, ... a=!3m1!1e3

Haven't there been a few big F2 shunts into those walls out of turn 3 over the years?

Correct me if I'm wrong... Do not virtually all road circuits have steel guardrails? Are the barriers at Monza, Spa, Le Mans, etc a different design of steel barrier?

I did not think that, because I thought I saw that the fire was behind the armco, so I wrongly assumed sparks and maybe fuel from the impact lit some object behind the barriers on fire.
I did not think the object burning largely behind the barrier was in fact the cockpit. If I'd have known that, I would have been damn sure he's dead already.

What definitly should be looked into is the behaviour of the armcos when confronted with the pointy noses of the cars.
Armcos are fine with touring cars or GT.