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they most likely did considering it was a new chassis. Also remember they took out one of the suspension end pieces on the DW12 that was on the old chassis

I don't want to have the debate tonight, let's do this again in a couple of weeks.

Open wheel, open cockpit is what indycar is. They already have wheel covers on the cars (which is a complete misunderstanding of the aero problem they had in the first place and is like a sticking plaster on a stab wound) which is bad enough
Any further and you might as well give the series over to imsa.

But don't start me off. As I say, emotions are on edge and we see enough stupid shit from drivers when they're pumped up and call them on it so let's just talk about it in the clear light of day when this is all over.

_________________
RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

thank you for this post!

(either way, all types of motorsport should look for improvements constantly, there has been issues in other series too but I doubt they will get fixed anytime soon)

Look, you might be right. And yeah, now is not really time for the argument.

To be honest I'm not necessarily for closed cockpits - it's just I am very pro the sport never writing off something as just an unfortunate consequence of what it is. There's always something to learn from everything.

But for now you're right, the main concern and importance is on the driver and obviously we all hope we get good news.

I'm curious, unless there is weight in the nose as mentioned before, isn't Carbon Fiber or what ever th body is made out of fairly lightweight, and possibly lighter then even the spring that Massa got struck by?

Generally speaking, it is very light. But some of the pieces are much denser and layered, so they'll have more mass than just a piece of wing or surface bodywork, for instance. The tub itself is mostly very thick and strong carbon fiber with some aluminum honeycomb (I believe).

Now at this point I'm purely speculating, but looking at the piece Justin hit I'd say that bit is somewhere between the very light wing components and the heavy-duty tub material. And it's also probably important to remember how extremely strong carbon fiber is. You could see from the replay how heavily he hit the piece, yet it remained pretty much unchanged from the impact. So the only thing really absorbing any of that energy was his helmet and...his head.

Those front crash structures are not as light as you might think. I don't know what the honeycomb-type crash structure is made of for these cars, but its going to be at least 2-3kg.

The spring that hit mass was 0.8kg, and he was going considerably slower.

Doesn't sound good.

Don't have a good feeling about this. Awful case of wrong place wrong time for Justin.

Regardless of how light it is hitting a solid object at around 200mph is going to do damage, Just have to hope not too much.

No and that's got me worried that the reason we havn't had an update is that they're waiting for family to arrive.

This was my thought as well.

btw - for those who think a titanium spring from an f1 car weighs more than a carbon fibre nose-cone you'd be sadly mistaken. those springs only weigh about 700 grams. less than 2lbs

I wasn't sure what material they were made from, I thought it was still metal then.

not to be mean, but titanium is metal


according to the discussion boards on reddit the nose-cone weighs about 8lbs without the wing

I read a post that suggested Justin may already be in surgery to relieve pressure from brain swelling and they are going to see how his body reacts and go from there.

That sounds plausible. I believe Massa and da Matta both had similar procedures. I think what they do is temporarily remove a bit of the skull to allow that pressure release.

Going to bed now, hope to wake up to some good news.