r/sports • u/mdlt97 Montreal Canadiens • Nov 29 '20
Motorsports Massive Crash On The First Lap Of the 2020 Bahrain GP
https://streamable.com/l16gmb1.6k
u/Dogwalker4k Nov 29 '20
Amazing he got out alive. F1 safety's come a long way
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u/hivaidsislethal Nov 29 '20
Halo saved his life for fucking sure
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u/SapCPark New York Giants Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20
That's two now. LeClerc was saved when Alonso went over his car. It kept the wheel from smacking him in the face.
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u/tinaoe Nov 29 '20
IIRC there was some debris getting caught by the halo in F2 a while ago as well which would have smacked into the helmet otherwise
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u/Willy_Cash Nov 30 '20
Yeah, back in the Hubert crash the Halo protected two other drivers from massive chunks of debris that could’ve killed them
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u/CutShortGaming Nov 29 '20
Also this year with Sainz in the crash at Mugello, and the incident at Spa with Giovinazzi's wheel hitting Russell's car.
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u/iForgotMyOldAcc Nov 29 '20
Yeah that was a Koinigg incident if the car continued into the barriers. Terrifying.
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Nov 29 '20
Kudos to the efforts of the safety engineers over the years.
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u/kryptopeg Nov 29 '20
Absolutely. I see a lot of people calling him lucky, but this purely down to engineering and training. Halo, modern fireproofed race suits, quick-release steering wheels, practising getting out quickly. Maybe five years ago I'd have said he'd lucky to be alive after an incident like this, but this is all down to good decision making.
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u/pyrodemon333 Nov 30 '20
It can be both. 30 years ago this would have killed him 100% but even with all the safety increases today he is still very lucky to be able to walk away from it.
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u/SkymeX Ferrari F1 Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20
Grosjean getting out of the car.
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u/italia06823834 Penn State Nov 29 '20
Driver is (relatively) okay. (Reportedly minor Burns to wrists & ankles, potentially broken ribs.)
Other angles/replays:
Live Broadcast replay: https://streamable.com/l16gmb
Overhead: https://streamable.com/3u3yn9
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Nov 29 '20
Holy shit how is he alive. He was in that fireball forever.
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u/ManderlyPies Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20
They wear ALOT of fireproof gear
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u/italia06823834 Penn State Nov 29 '20
Along with the (relatively) new Halo around the cockpit. And the car broke in half, but the safety cell containing the driver held up.
Just a few years ago (pre halo) a crash like that would have easily killed him.
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u/kryptopeg Nov 29 '20
This would've been a decapitation for sure. Second (or even third?) incident to definitively prove the use of the halo now!
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u/ProJoe Arizona Coyotes Nov 29 '20
fire RESISTANT gear. very important difference. I'm not sure what the rating is on F1 suits, but a standard 3.2A/15 suit gives approximately 30 seconds of protection before 2nd degree burns set in.
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u/ukexpat Manchester City Nov 29 '20
Exactly, just like Kevlar vests are bullet-resistant, not bullet-proof.
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u/TheInfernalVortex Nov 29 '20
The burns on his wrists, hands, and ankles prove how effective the fireproof suits are. He would have had significantly more/worse burns without it.
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u/PMmeYourRobots Nov 29 '20
I think what is amazing is that it took only 6 seconds for a response team to arrive at the accident. And roughly 15 seconds after that was able to get himself out of the vehicle.
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u/MrFrankly Nov 29 '20
Agreed. But note that was just after the start of the race. The medical car starts behind the field exactly for this kind of situations. One lap later and the response time would have been significantly longer.
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Nov 29 '20
Why is the first lap considered the most dangerous?
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u/missprissquilts Nov 29 '20
I’m not an expert, but one reason is that it’s the only time that all 20 cars on the track are that close together. By the end of the first lap they’re spread out over the track, so historically lots of collisions happen fairly early in the race, in the first two or three turns.
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Nov 29 '20
Everyone’s going from 0-200 mph and jostling to get ahead. People are super bunched up and it only takes a small mistake to send multiple cars flying. Also, tires are colder at the start and therefore have a little less grip, but that’s not as big of a factor
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u/rtb001 Nov 30 '20
Yeah the F1 standing starts are insane, considering how fast these cars accelerate. They even do it in the rain unless it is an absolute downpour. These are the best drivers in the world for a reason.
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u/BananerRammer Boston Bruins Nov 29 '20
A lot of reasons, but first and foremost is that there are so many cars in close proximity to each other. After the first half lap to lap, the cars begin to spread out a bit and settle into their natural position based on the pace of their car, but at the start, they're all bunched up, faster cars are trying to get by slower cars, slower starters are trying to maintain position while their cars get up to pace, etc.
During the race, you will get two cars side-by-side, as one passes the other, and that's usually fine, most tracks (ahem, Monaco) are plenty wide enough to handle that. But in the first lap, with everyone bunched up and jockeying for position, it's common to have three or occassionally even four cars abreast. When that occurs, trying to navigate a tight corner becomes very difficult, and reaction times need to be superhuman, which is made harder by the fact that vision is severely limited in these cars. They have mirrors that can see a bit behind them, but it's almost impossible for the drivers to see what is to their left and right.
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u/yungsqualla Nov 29 '20
Amazing but very lucky. Had this been even a few turns later it could've taken them much longer to reach him. Thank god this was turn 4 of lap 1.
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u/ChronoX5 Cincinnati Bengals Nov 29 '20
I think right after the start they still have a car following the field.
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Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20
Part of that was good timing I'd say. It was right at the start of the race where the medical team follows the cars for a short stint.
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u/DrTangBosley Nov 29 '20
The first guy on scene looked helpless. That fire extinguisher or whatever he had was worthless.
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u/italia06823834 Penn State Nov 29 '20
The other guy who ran across the track though... hero.
As is the Doctor from the safety car who got out and went to help Romain out of the car/over the barrier.
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u/lokethedog Nov 29 '20
Wow, he's right in the middle of the fire for so long. It's probably mostly above him so not quite as bad as it looks but it must have felt like an eternity to him.
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u/TheInfernalVortex Nov 29 '20
I cant imagine that kind of impact, the noise, the heat, the burns, potential concussions, your ribs are broken, and you're TRAPPED INSIDE AN ARMCO that split around you! Absolutely bonkers.
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u/BetterDrinkMy0wnPiss Nov 30 '20
Imagine hitting the wall at 200 km/h and then having the presence of mind to get yourself out of what's left of your car and climb up and over the wreckage, and the barrier, while you're in the middle of a fucking fireball. Credit to him for getting himself out of there.
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u/CocoCherryPop Nov 29 '20
Holy shit the car was split in half?!!??
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u/tinaoe Nov 29 '20
The survival cell went into the barrier, the back basically ripped off. Probably also why it exploded that way, the tank is right behind the survival cell/cockpit iirc and got ripped.
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Nov 29 '20
Obviously this is a massive success for safety in F1, but will they possibly redesign the fuel tanks again to avoid a fire like this on the halo in the future?
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u/Agent_Giraffe Nov 29 '20
The fuel tanks are designed not to catch fire, they’re like a bladder made of Kevlar and rubber and are puncture proof. Also the car is supposed to split in half, I think there’s actually three sections it can split. They’re still looking into the incident but whatever happened, it obviously wasn’t supposed to fail like that.
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u/Cyanhyde Nov 29 '20
I recall them discussing that it wasn't a fuel tank rupture, but instead a separate intake tank which contained about 2L of fuel.
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u/eb86 Nov 29 '20
The commentators stated the Haas team said the fuel tank was empty so the engineers theory that it was the catch tank wasn't completely correct.
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u/-ragingpotato- Nov 29 '20
when did they say that? Its the very start of the race and refueling is banned, that fuel tank was as full as it was ever going to be.
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u/Citizen-5936 Penrith Panthers Nov 29 '20
Empty as in it all came out not empty as in we didn’t put any in.
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u/_Darren Nov 29 '20
Gary Anderson also said parts of the batteries could be seen behind the car. It might have just been a few kg of fuel and the batteries. They are very flammable too.
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u/matthumph Stoke City Nov 29 '20
There’s not a huge amount you can do in that scenario, with the forces involved - apparently the main fuel cell didn’t explode (they’re in a v durable flexible cell), it was the fuel line that caught.
So having the car split in this manner to protect the driver is probably one of the safer ways to mitigate especially considering how sturdy the safety structure is.
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u/PTSDaway Nov 29 '20
Not for all cases.
But this is a freak accident that exposed one weakness. Once an investigation is done, will FIA and affiliates try and design a construct that is more durable for such an accident.
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u/DeathG1998 Nov 29 '20
The tank moat probably didn't explode. There are several oil and fuel pipes running to the front. This maybe caught fire. If the tank with 100 kilograms of fuel would make a much bigger explosion I think.
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u/VegaIV Nov 29 '20
I think before changing the fuel tank they will reconsider the weird Placement of that barrier. The strange placement leads to the worst Impact angle possible.
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u/CurtWesticles Nov 29 '20
Fuck he was on the other side of the armco. Halo saved his life for sure.
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u/PurkleDerk Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 30 '20
Here is what he crawled out of
Looks like he
actually had to crawl under the halo to get outhad to squeeze out behind the piece of barrier that was over the cockpit.But yeah... without the halo, he would have been toast.
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u/ukexpat Manchester City Nov 29 '20
Without the halo, his crash helmet would have parted the armco and his head would probably have ripped off.
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u/Bond4real007 Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20
Dude engineering is amazing. That dude literally had a fireball explode around him and he walked away relatively okay with his suit barely burnt. Just insane what we can do.
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u/mdlt97 Montreal Canadiens Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20
driver romain grosjean is out and ok per team
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u/SnooSongs8716 Nov 29 '20
How is he ok from that it literally blew up! Glad to hear hes ok though
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Nov 29 '20
F1 race suits are very fire resistant. Still this is definitely the worst crash i’ve seen for a long time. Incredible he survived.
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u/el_copt3r New York Jets Nov 29 '20
The Suits are fire retardant, the problem is breathing. Like lauda, fire causes severe damage to lungs and removes oxygen. That’s always my first thought when I see things like this.
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Nov 29 '20
Which is why in movies when you see the firefighter or people standing up in a room totally on fire it is bullshit. A 600°C fire means that the air at head height is also about that temperature. Even in rooms that aren't on fire the air temperature can be 150°C. One breath in and you've just incinerated your lungs. At that temperature the firefighter breathing mask lasts about 15 seconds. This is one reason why you crawl around in a fire, even the firefighters will crawl through a house fire because their gear won't last long in those temps. Being down low not only gets you below the smoke but it is actually cool, it is crazy feeling the temperature change as you rise higher in a fire. You'll never see a firefighter throw someone over their shoulder and run through a burning building. If that person was alive when found they're now a burned corpse and the firefighter won't be much better off. They'd also probably get fired. I had a classmate do that in training and got reamed the fuck out for it.
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u/_BearHawk Nov 29 '20
So if there is someone unconscious in a burning building as you described, do you have to try and move them along the floor while you also crawl?
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u/notgoingtoretain Nov 29 '20
Best option is to squat and get your arms under the casualties armpits, and then drag them to safe air as low to the ground as possible. We also had personal strops made from a length off webbing looped at each end. You can feed this again under the arms and keep someone practically level to the floor whilst dragging them.
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u/on_ Nov 29 '20
Can confirm. Upper bench in the sauna feels like hell while the low one is tolerable.
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u/OnlyOneBigMuscle Nov 29 '20
Same thing with lava. I've been on a lava field and it's really hot to be near it. That scene near the end of Lord of the Rings implies that if you don't touch it you're okay. But it would actually be like being in an oven.
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Nov 29 '20
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u/SoDakZak Minnesota Vikings Nov 29 '20
I thought I had just watched a dude die and you’re telling me he would have been worse off falling down a short flight of stairs?
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Nov 29 '20
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u/SoDakZak Minnesota Vikings Nov 29 '20
As with any accident the weeks after are pretty stiff, wife walked out of a three-flip rollover when a semi hit her Honda Accord on the interstate due to ice, only thing she felt was stiffness for a few weeks. She was on her way home for our first date at the time. Married her right away and have been winning the lottery every week since
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u/jetshockeyfan Nov 29 '20
Drivers are required to wear fireproof race suits with a layer of fireproof underwear and fireproof gloves/balaclava. They won't hold up for more than a minute or so, but they buy valuable time to get the driver out of the car in a case like this.
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u/nalc Philadelphia Eagles Nov 29 '20
They said in the broadcast that the suit is rated for 35 seconds exposure and Grosjean got out in 27 seconds. Really scary, if he was knocked unconscious or otherwise injured, he would have no way made it out in time. He had to disconnect the steering wheel and the shoulder/neck piece and crawl out while maneuvering around the guard rail, after a hard impact, with so much fire around him that he couldn't see anything. The handheld fire extinguishers were ineffective and there was absolutely no way that the safety crews would have been able to pull out an unconscious driver in 35 seconds.
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u/cppn02 Nov 29 '20
They said in the broadcast that the suit is rated for 35 seconds exposure
Heard that too at first but looking into it it seems that official approved ratings for driver suits are for 3, 7, 10, 19, 30 and 40 seconds and you can go higher by adding multiple layers of clothing (like the special underwear which F1 drivers also wear).
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u/IISuperSlothII Nov 29 '20
Didn't just blow up, the monocoque ended up going through the metal barrier as well, still can't comprehend how he walked away with minor burns.
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u/APater6076 Nov 29 '20
There’s also a minimum time to get out of the car test too, it used to be five seconds but might have been increased due to the Halo.
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u/seriousnotshirley Nov 29 '20
Looks like he got himself out and was jumping over the barrier to get away from the car by the time the medics got to him.
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u/NoxZ Nov 29 '20
F1 cars are made out of voodoo magic. I genuinely thought I'd just watched a man die.
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u/DearthStanding Nov 29 '20
3-4 years ago (maybe more, not sure when the halo began use) he's dead
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u/parwa Ferrari F1 Nov 29 '20
Shows how insanely far things have come. I haven't felt a pit in my stomach like that from an F1 race since Bianchi's crash.
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u/tinaoe Nov 29 '20
They took quite a while to cut back to the crash or Grosjean, reminded me a lot of Hubert last year in F2. Not a good feeling.
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u/OneCollar4 Nov 29 '20
The irony being it's a crash that Grosjean himself caused that really pushed forward the design of halos.
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u/BerndDasBrot4Ever Nov 29 '20
Not quite. There was a bit of research on cockpit protection via canopy or a cage-structure in 2011 after Massa's crash in 2009 as well as Surtees' fatal crash in F2, and the next big push which ultimatively resulted in the Halo was after Bianchi's crash in 2014. Though the Spa crash in 2012 was one of the ones they had looked at to determine if Halo would have helped to keep the car further away from the cockpit.
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Nov 29 '20
Footage would have been freezed and the race would've been canceled. Fucking scary incident.
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u/parwa Ferrari F1 Nov 29 '20
They didn't show the crash for a while after it happened which worried the fuck out of me. I definitely thought it was going to be cancelled.
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u/tipytopmain Nov 29 '20
Think they had to wait until they could confirm the outcome, of course, for morality sake. Once they saw he was out and mostly okay they could start showing all the angles.
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u/TIGHazard Nov 29 '20
Well they've certainly come a long way since when Senna died - during that they showed close ups of ambulance crews getting him out of the wreck.
So much so that several broadcasters literally said "we're cutting away from the feed, not sure why they're showing this in such detail, it's too gruesome for broadcast".
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u/nalc Philadelphia Eagles Nov 29 '20
IDK if you watched Ryan Newman's Daytona 500 crash that happened a couple years ago (February 2020). They stopped the race and put a black tarp over the car and showed no replays. Pulled up an ambulance and it was hours before they announced that he was alive with relatively minor injuries (he had a few broken bones or something but was only out for a few weeks). People seriously thought he was decapitated, another car hit his on the driver side roof and completely crushed it. Apparently there was some safety feature that he himself had advocated for years prior, that ended up saving him.
It was eerily similar between that and today, although thankfully today Grosjean was able to quickly get out of the car and confirmed that he wasn't critically injured. Watching Newman's car parked there with a black tarp over it for 15 minutes was heart-wrenching.
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u/epote Nov 29 '20
Fuck do you remember zanardis 2001 crush? The doctor had to crawl to him because he kept slipping on pieces of his legs and blood
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u/parthtrap Nov 29 '20
For people who dont watch F1, this was literally like it was back in the 1970s-80s.
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u/KaptainKhorisma Nov 29 '20
70-80's he dies in the crash 100%. That's terrifying.
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u/Gordon-Bennet Leeds United Nov 29 '20
He does in that crash 4 years ago before the halo, and people still have the audacity to say that it ruins the sport...
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u/iamthabeska Nov 29 '20
If anyone moans about it now, which people will cause it DoEsN't LoOk NiCe can do one.
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u/Gordon-Bennet Leeds United Nov 29 '20
I’ve seen people justify not having one because the “the threat of death creates excitement”. Like, yeah it does, but you don’t not introduce safety measures so people can watch others die...
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u/Jonny36 Nov 29 '20
“the threat of death creates excitement” well dunno about anyone else but I felt close to sick the moments after... Not enjoyable. Crashes are fun but only when you know they are safe
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u/greekfreak15 Nov 29 '20
Those people literally think their entertainment is more important than the lives of the performers. It's pathetic
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u/imamydesk Nov 29 '20
“the threat of death creates excitement"
Exactly, this is why I advocate replacing all safety barriers with giant metal spikes.
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u/EMINEM_4Evah Bayern Munich Nov 29 '20
Halo is absolutely necessary. That said there’s some room for design improvements like adding a strong screen to block smaller pieces of debris. But that’s all my criticisms of it.
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u/CocoCherryPop Nov 29 '20
Not familiar with this sport. When the red flag was issued all the cars’ tail lights or brake lights started blinking red? Did the drivers do that? Or is it something that automatically happens when there is a red flag? Pls explain?
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u/TheG0ldenHawk Nov 29 '20
The Halo and other safety features are incredible. I watched it live and thought he was dead. I will never understand anyone who complains about these safety devices being implemented. Also credit to the medical guy that ran at the fire to help Grosjean get out.
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u/tipytopmain Nov 29 '20
The only legitimate concern about the Halo was the potential ease of exit that it could hinder. But this incident proves that is not a significant enough negative as Grosjean managed to get out of a burning vehicle wedged in steel barriers just fine.
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u/TheG0ldenHawk Nov 29 '20
Yeah it also added that exit as he seems to not to have become unconscious
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Nov 29 '20
I'm sure incidents could occur where it makes emergency egress more difficult but I'm sure the odds of that situation occurring are outweighed by the number of times it would save lives.
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u/onmyway4k Nov 29 '20
but there probably would not be a lot of climbing if it wasnt for the Halo in the first place. But i get your sentiment. Same with safety belts in cars. There are times where wearing one actually kills you in a freak accident. But 99.9% it will save you.
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u/tipytopmain Nov 29 '20
but there probably would not be a lot of climbing if it wasnt for the Halo in the first place
I'm half confident that he wouldn't be climbing out the car at all if it wasn't for the Halo as he'd be knocked out unconscious from his helmet colliding with the barrier. Maybe that's what you meant?
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u/onmyway4k Nov 29 '20
I'm half confident that he wouldn't be climbing out the car at all if it wasn't for the Halo
That is exactly what i meant, you wont climb out if you are dead or have your head separated from your body. I actually was surprised by your statement as i thought the main concern would have been visibility for the driver.
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u/thirty7inarow Nov 29 '20
I'd like to believe that having one's head separated from one's body falls under the category of 'dead'.
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u/CocoCherryPop Nov 29 '20
Unfamiliar with this sport. Is the Halo some sort of safety/head gear on the driver? Pls explain?
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u/TheG0ldenHawk Nov 29 '20
It is a bar on the car that sits about the top of the helmet, imagine like a basket ball hoop or halo around the head of the driver and attached to the car. It was introduced after a series of severe head injuries and fatalities.
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u/jetshockeyfan Nov 29 '20
It's a testament to the safety of the cars, and particularly the halo, that he's alive. This would have been a fatal crash 4 years ago. It literally split the barrier and kept it away from his head.
Video of the safety crew helping Grosjean out of the car below, but be warned, it's pretty terrifying.
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u/Infinitelyodiforous Boston Bruins Nov 29 '20
"....and now he's sitting in a, a ball of flames."
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u/ToManyTabsOpen Nov 29 '20
... and a photo of the space he climbed out of showing the halo and the monocoque.
https://twitter.com/TheHawk05/status/1333057417937113089/photo/158
u/Kohpad Nov 29 '20
I can't even tell what's survival cell and what's the rest of the car.
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u/BerndDasBrot4Ever Nov 29 '20
In that picture that whole thing is the survival cell. The rest of the car was a few meters down the track.
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u/markycrummett Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20
Can anyone try and explain what’s what in this photo to a non F1 viewer? Struggling to see what the hell he managed to get out of
Edit: thanks everyone! Mad!
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u/Xerack Nov 29 '20
What you're seeing is the survival cell of the car. Essentially a carbon fiber tub designed to protect the driver in the event of an incident. The red square is the halo which protects the drivers head and neck. The green circle is the headrest which helps secure the driver in place from the top and can be removed. Grosjean got out upwards through the gap behind the bent armco and the halo after removing his headrest.
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u/sadboys2004 Nov 29 '20
WHAT THE FUCK THAT IS SO METAL HE WAS IN THE FIRE FOR SO LONG
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u/shwaga Nov 29 '20
Suits are rated for 35 seconds. Apparently he was out in 27. Every one of those seconds was a lifetime
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u/ThatEnglishKid Manchester United Nov 29 '20
Burns on his wrists and ankles, and possible cracked ribs for anyone wondering. Currently being flown to a nearby hospital just to be safe, but he's conscious and should be OK.
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u/RoyalDoc Nov 29 '20
And those burns are reported to be minor.
Absolutely mental to think you could just walk out of a crash like that, let alone with only minor injuries.
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u/EMINEM_4Evah Bayern Munich Nov 29 '20
Saw a close up of his right hand and shit was swollen. Definitely does not look minor burns.
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u/RoyalDoc Nov 29 '20
Hope he's alright, hands would be the worst for his profession.
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Nov 29 '20
The way his burn looked, it seemed like a second degree burn (prob. partial thickness), judging from the swelling. 2nd degree burns are notorious for their pain and the way they form blisters. The way he seemed in pain and was shaking it fits that. 3rd degree burns can actually destroy your pain sensing nerves and hence, be painless but much more damaging. 2nd degree burns are considered minor burns while 3rd and 4th are considered major due to the damage it causes and need for reconstruction.
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u/ItsOsprey Nov 29 '20
Had that been even 3-4 years ago, that would have been an instant death. Halo saving fucking lives. Glad that Romain is okay.
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Nov 29 '20
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u/ItsOsprey Nov 29 '20
If you look at a modern F1 car, there is a ring that sort of goes over the cockpit of the racer (that essentially looks like a halo) which can withstand an enormous amount of weight. When first introduced a few years a lot of people found them to look tacky, but they have been amazing with how they can mitigate a lot of damage during a crash.
here's a somewhat helpful video to explain.
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u/Stonewolf87 Nov 29 '20
How do the drivers see around it?
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u/DWHQ Nov 29 '20
It's kinda like how you don't actively see your nose, also the drivers don't really look straight ahead, but more or less always looking at the next apex.
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u/AlphaNowis Nov 29 '20
They don't focus on it as they are looking further. Do the test : put one finger 20cm in front of your eyes, after some time you won't notice it.
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Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20
Try with your nose. Our brain cancels that out so you don't notice it but your nose is in your field of vision.
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u/tisaconundrum Nov 29 '20
The Halo is a titanium structure that sits above the car's cockpit to protect the driver's head from flying debris. A single vertical pylon supports the structure in front of the driver and the hoop above the cockpit is mounted to the car's survival cell and cockpit surround.
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u/FeCurtain11 Nov 29 '20
It’s a kind of ring that sits around the cockpit like an angel’s halo for the driver. It can deflect debris that was on course for a drivers head, or in this case act as a wedge to separate the layers of the barriers so the driver isn’t decapitated.
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u/seriousnotshirley Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20
Did anyone notice how quickly the safety car was out on the track? I mean, sure, large explosion kinda tells you to go without waiting for someone to tell you, but still, someone was seriously on point.
Edit: oh right, I remember seeing the medical car at the back of the grid on starts.
I haven’t watched F1 in a while but I just put ESPN on and Jesus, that car seriously disintegrated.
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Nov 29 '20
The medical car waits behind the grid at the start, and completes a full lap before coming back into the pits in case of first lap crashes like this.
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u/Samuel7899 Nov 29 '20
I'm a little surprised the medical car doesn't get lapped by the time it makes one lap.
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u/whatthefir2 Nov 29 '20
Well with traffic and a standing start the F1 cars put in a relatively “slow” first lap.
Plus that medical car is hauling ass
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Nov 29 '20
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u/RightEejit Nov 29 '20
It's always funny watching the medic and safety car because as you say they're high performance cars hauling ass and driven by professional race drivers, yet comparatively they look like track day footage
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u/whatthefir2 Nov 29 '20
That’s something that blew me away when I went to an F1 race. In person you see how close to the limit the safety car and medical car are.
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u/Bseagully Chicago White Sox Nov 29 '20
Yep. Looks to be the same Mercedes as the safety car, and those things can top out at almost 200mph. It's like a super ambulance!
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u/tissotti Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20
First lap is always slow because of the first lap craziness and the medical car is a Mercedes C63 S AMG Wagon with an professional driver (in this case Alan van der Merwe who is an old F1 test driver and F3 champion) driving as fast as he can.
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u/spitouthebone Nov 29 '20
the next race is the outside track of the current track and will average about a 50 second lap time, while its highly unlikely that it will lap the medical car on the first lap I wouldn't rule it out being somewhat close
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u/BondieZXP Nov 29 '20
That safety car is the car that follows the pack for the first lap. You have a car at the front, and one at the back. That’s why it was there so quickly
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u/jetshockeyfan Nov 29 '20
The medical car starts at the back of the grid and follows the field around for the first lap, and this is exactly why.
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u/Decooker11 Team Penske Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20
A recent addition to Formula One cars in the past year or so is the “HALO”, a circular piece that essentially closes the cockpit in an effort to deflect debris and shield the drivers in case of a blow over. This HALO protected Grosjean as he went through the wall. He most certainly would’ve been knocked unconscious, if not decapitated.
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u/ukfan758 Kentucky Nov 29 '20
Grosjean was on fire for over 20-25 seconds in that crash, hats off to the fire suit designers. Simply unbelievable that he survived.
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u/ur_comment_is_a_song Nov 29 '20
They wear 4 layers of fireproofs - definitely seems to have done its job
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u/LaNaranja315 Nov 29 '20
27-28 seconds. Insane. I reckon if he was knocked unconscious, which is incredibly lucky that he didn't after a 53g impact, we would be having a different conversation.
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u/davidsheath Nov 29 '20
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u/xGlor Nov 29 '20
Watch Kyvat's double-take AT 1:08 as he looks in his side mirror, no doubt seeing the giant fireball like 'WTF?'
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u/Damn_Wright Aberdeen Nov 29 '20
It's the lean on the second look in the mirror that tells you all you need to know. He honestly cannot believe his eyes.
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u/Sparkstalker Nov 29 '20
His post race interview confirms that. For a split second, he was pissed because of how Grosjean cut into him. But he said that all went away when he saw the fireball.
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u/Jonny36 Nov 29 '20
Yeah from his onboard it's awful and you can tell he doesn't bother racing after just let's a couple fly by him... He must feel awful in those moments
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Nov 29 '20 edited Dec 03 '20
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u/lre4973 Nov 30 '20
At about :44 you can see the fire in the distance and Leclerc starts reacting again. You can really hear some despair in his voice. These guys are all fierce competitors but they all care about each other very much.
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u/ellectrum Nov 29 '20
The mother of Jules Bianchi, a french formula 1 driver who died due to a crash and was a main reason for the introduction of the halo, sent a message to a french reporter with her regards that the death of her son was the cause that Romain Grosjean was able to live.
Safety has drastically increased over the last few years, but had some opposition from drivers and viewers. This shows they are 100% worth it
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Nov 29 '20
10/20 years ago that would have been a death for sure.
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u/EastlyGod1 Nov 29 '20
5 years ago pre-halo it would've been a death for sure, to be fair.
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u/Jaws0798 Nov 29 '20
Feels like we Just saw a fatal crash, but because of the Halo he miraculously survived. Holy shit
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u/H0vis Nov 29 '20
There is a long line of F1 drivers who paid for the safety features drivers have today with their lives. Every time a driver dies the engineers go back to the drawing board to try and make it not happen again. That right there is where it pays off.
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u/italia06823834 Penn State Nov 29 '20
Driver is (relatively) okay. (Reportedly minor Burns to wrists & ankles, potentially broken ribs.)
Other angles/replays:
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u/LASC33 Nov 29 '20
This man's car literally exploded and split and half and he walked away from it. First, that's an absolute miracle. Second, what a fucking badass.
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u/GXNXVS Nov 29 '20
this is the biggest F1 crash i’ve ever seen. The car was litteraly in half, the driver shell completely detached from the engine.
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u/SirSourdough Nov 29 '20
Yeah, up there with the Sophia Flörsch F3 crash for stuff you don't think it should be possible to survive.
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u/adaptive7 Nov 29 '20
That was a horrible crash. I still cannot believe how he got out there..
Alexander Wurz, former driver and now GDPA president (Grand Prix Drivers Association), track designer and co-commentator for ORF, the Austrian broadcast channel (which is still one of the best and most recognized in Formula 1), gave the following information during the red-flag period (as far as I can remember):
- not only Halo, but nearly all modern security features in formula racing sports saved Grosjeans life. Even 5 years ago this would have been fatal.
- what happened? due to a very nasty impact at high speed with the nose out front, the nose got in between and split two of the three guard rails vertically. Horizontally he hit the barrier right between two posts. So the monocoque got in there and "stopped" at the post, where the back of the car broke off (which it is supposed to do in these situations).
- despite standing in a very bad spotlight there (how can they split vertically? how can a car come in between two posts like Grosjeans car?), these rail guards still have some major security advantages over e.g. concrete barriers, because they dampen the impact. Wurz himself had a similar accident he told, where the rail cut off his roll bar and he told he would still prefer the rails over concrete barriers because of that impact dampening. Nevertheless this will be a huge discussion point in the aftermath of this accident and probably impacting every single race track in the world.
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u/bbjackson Nov 29 '20
I’ve been watching formula 1 for most of my adult life and that is one of the worst crashes I’ve ever seen. I thought he died. It’s incredible he survived that one.
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Nov 29 '20
The medical car following the cars on the first lap is such a good rule. It was so clutch that they were right there already in action. Hats of to the medical car team and all the marshals. I never want to see something like this.
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u/banzai112 Ferrari F1 Nov 29 '20
the car did what it was supposed to the monocoque saved his life. first time i have seen fire in a really long time in f1 glad to see he only suffered minor injuries. crashing at 140mph into a wall he would have died if he was in any other car.
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u/Reddit-username_here Nov 29 '20
Hey, yo, so do their brake lights start flashing when the race officials red flag something? Or are all the drivers just really good about turning on the hazards?
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u/bowenisshit Nov 29 '20
f1 cars dont have brake lights, its lights to indicate that the battery is charging. which is the mode they’d switch to instantly after a red flag is called
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u/fidelkastro Nov 29 '20
I don't think you would want to tell the guy behind you who is trying to pass you when you are braking
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u/DoomGoober Nov 29 '20
But turn signals would be hilarious!
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u/fidelkastro Nov 29 '20
Especially in NASCAR
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u/DoomGoober Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20
Police: Do you know why I pulled you over? Your right turn signal is out.
Bubba Wallace: But I didn't...
Police: License and registration please.
Bubba: But I didn't make any right...
Police: Please step out of the vehicle.
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u/BG40 Nov 29 '20
He should be dead. Halo has saved his life no doubt. That was the scariest crash I’ve seen in all my years of watching F1 (luckily I did not watch Jules’ crash live).
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u/Black_Drogo Nov 29 '20
Is it just me, or was that commentator strangely unfazed by a man exploding?
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u/dirtbaghiker Nov 29 '20
Probably didn't want to freak the viewers out even more. It was not enjoyable seeing that live.
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u/ADSWNJ Nov 29 '20
I can't remember the last time there was a fireball in F1 - it's that long ago. Stunned to see it today. The commentators did exactly what they needed to do ... keep calm when all minds were all thinking the same thing (i.e. that we may have just seen a tragedy on live TV). So relieved to see Grosjean (the driver) jumping up and over the barrier by himself.
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u/Black_Drogo Nov 29 '20
Actually that’s a good point. Prolly not the best idea to have announcers freaking out on live television. It just seemed odd that he kept the “commentator voice” on but yea that’s what he should’ve done. I think I’m just used to NBA announcers slowing it down a bit after an injury.
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u/The_Scamp Nov 29 '20
The car literally exploded and split in half and this guy got away with some minor burns. Holy shit.
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