FORMULA ONE - 2020

And now Stroll. This is a great example of one of the many reasons that open wheel cars are a dumb idea. 

I hope the medical car guys get a nice cheese plate for Christmas.  

van der Merwe for driver of the day.

In reply to SnowMongoose :

Grojean will get it.

And thanks to an eventful end- Albon gets a podium.  Verstappen lost a few more points to Bottas thanks to the RP failure.

The halo may be ugly, but I don't want to hear anyone complain about it ever again. That was a terrifying wreck.

here is your long shot bet of the week....

Lewis Hamilton retires after next weeks race , if not before,

After seeing that crash and breaking all of Schumacher's records this year  its time to go out on top .....

Grosjean has been rumoured to be talking to teams about running Indy cars. I wonder what will be going through his head after this incident. Indy cars run higher speeds than his accident occurred at today.

Is it just me or was that first marshall on site at Grosjean's crash a great big chicken? He started spraying water (or whatever) at nothing and never really got close to the flames. A human being was inside that fire and this guy did nothing to put it out

And that, boys and girls, is why we wear our safety gear.

In reply to loosecannon :

I thought the guy was a bit timid initially, but even the doctor and the driver didn't wade right in. That was a good sized fireball that would tend to keep you back and the marshal appeared to be dousing the base of the flames. There was a noticeable delay while all three got their extinguishers pins pulled and activated. In the end Romain was clear of it all 20 seconds after impact, so it may have seemed slow but really wasn't.

Geeze that wreck was insane! Through the armco, car broken in half, on fire. Halo saved his life, no doubt. I imagine a lot of drivers are going to have some pause after watching that one...

DeadSkunk (Warren) said:

In reply to loosecannon :

I thought the guy was a bit timid initially, but even the doctor and the driver didn't wade right in. That was a good sized fireball that would tend to keep you back and the marshal appeared to be dousing the base of the flames. There was a noticeable delay while all three got their extinguishers pins pulled and activated. In the end Romain was clear of it all 20 seconds after impact, so it may have seemed slow but really wasn't.

To give credit, it wasn't the medical car driver giving coverage for the doctor despite what the announcers said. That guy came from the other side of the track. The driver did help once grosjean was extracted. You can see it in the (terrifying) continuous helicopter shot. 

Keith Tanner said:

DeadSkunk (Warren) said:

In reply to loosecannon :

I thought the guy was a bit timid initially, but even the doctor and the driver didn't wade right in. That was a good sized fireball that would tend to keep you back and the marshal appeared to be dousing the base of the flames. There was a noticeable delay while all three got their extinguishers pins pulled and activated. In the end Romain was clear of it all 20 seconds after impact, so it may have seemed slow but really wasn't.

To give credit, it wasn't the medical car driver giving coverage for the doctor despite what the announcers said. That guy came from the other side of the track. The driver did help once grosjean was extracted. You can see it in the (terrifying) continuous helicopter shot. 

Yeah, the medical car driver was delayed a few seconds getting his extinguisher out of the trunk.

I had to look it up.  That was a replay of Helmuth Koinigg at Watkins Glen in '74.   As previously observed, the Halo prolly saved Grosjean's life.

A couple of things; First when I was trained we were taught to spray the base of the flame. Second The radiant heat from that fire would likely be felt from 25ft away, without proper gear you can only get so close.

 As a former motorcycle racer & open wheel driver this is why I don't like armco. This isn't the first car to go through the armco.

Thankfully all of the gear worked; count me as a fan of the halo and multi layer nomex. His shoes were actually smoking.

Tom1200 said:

A couple of things; First when I was trained we were taught to spray the base of the flame. Second The radiant heat from that fire would likely be felt from 25ft away, without proper gear you can only get so close.

 As a former motorcycle racer & open wheel driver this is why I don't like armed. This isn't the first car to go trough the armed.

Thankfully all of the gear worked; count me as a fan of the halo and multi layer nomex. His shoes were actually smoking.

Only one of his shoes was smoking....  the other one was still in the car and probably doing a bit more than smoking....

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

Understood, I just didn't want to go into detsil. The comment was meant as holy crap his feet are smouldering.

Tom1200 said:

A couple of things; First when I was trained we were taught to spray the base of the flame. Second The radiant heat from that fire would likely be felt from 25ft away, without proper gear you can only get so close.

 As a former motorcycle racer & open wheel driver this is why I don't like armco. This isn't the first car to go through the armco.

Thankfully all of the gear worked; count me as a fan of the halo and multi layer nomex. His shoes were actually smoking.

The purpose of armco is to deform and absorb energy. Ideally, it will rip off the uprights like a big zipper. That makes it a lot more forgiving than a concrete wall. Tires strapped together don't give quite as far, but they look bouncy. My wife the highway construction nerd was quite adamant that the barrier worked as intended here.

The problem is that F1 cars are designed like darts. If that nose hits a gap and the car hits at a fairly high angle (is that obtuse? I forget) , it'll spear right through it.

I think the wall could have been better placed. Instead of this wall angling towards the track, it could have been parallel. The wall behind it could be at an angle for the access road. I'm not sure how much difference it would have made here but it might have meant Grosjean would bounce off instead of spearing in.

....and his visor appeared to be melted. I have to wonder how much stuff he may have inhaled. I expect the G-force number will be mighty impressive, too. If I hadn't watched him climb out of there under his own power I would never believe he could have survived.

Instagram message from hospital

Yeah I'm not going to be too hard on the marshall for that, seemed like he got in there fairly quickly and initially Grosjean was trying to climb back through the hole before jumping over the barrier. 

I watched that repeatedly just to see him hop over the Armco. I counted along from the time of impact to when he's free of the fire. To come out of a fire like that, with all that loose fiel, and not actually be ON FIRE is amazing. I know I just drive crappy street cars on track, but this is the one that convinces me that I need to add a nomex balaclava to my gear. 

loosecannon said:

Is it just me or was that first marshall on site at Grosjean's crash a great big chicken? He started spraying water (or whatever) at nothing and never really got close to the flames. A human being was inside that fire and this guy did nothing to put it out

I also think they have no idea anyone was in that bulk- you could see body outside of the armco- so an initial response like that wasn't shocking.  And the safety car guys were a little hesitant, until they saw Grosjean trying to get out, and then they jumped right into it.  That happened so fast, it seemed to be a lot to take in.  And there's also the issue of the battery that's in the back of their minds along with the fire.

When I saw the view of Romain trying to crawl through the hole in the barrier, and then realizing he could only fit going up- holy cow.

If not for the halo, he would have at least been knocked unconscious, if not dead.

The other thing that was shocking was to see the car torn in half- that's happened a couple of time for an Indycar, but I don't remember seeing that for a very long time in an F1 car.   Tore right at the fuel cell.

Keith Tanner said:

The purpose of armco is to deform and absorb energy. Ideally, it will rip off the uprights like a big zipper. That makes it a lot more forgiving than a concrete wall. Tires strapped together don't give quite as far, but they look bouncy. My wife the highway construction nerd was quite adamant that the barrier worked as intended here.

The problem is that F1 cars are designed like darts. If that nose hits a gap and the car hits at a fairly high angle (is that obtuse? I forget) , it'll spear right through it.

I think the wall could have been better placed. Instead of this wall angling towards the track, it could have been parallel. The wall behind it could be at an angle for the access road. I'm not sure how much difference it would have made here but it might have meant Grosjean would bounce off instead of spearing in.

IIRC Armco was originally designed for use on interstates and highways so very few 150 mph+ darts to take into account there. Given that F1 tracks have to meet more stringent design characteristics I would have thought bare Armco (no tires or Safer Barrier) would not be used where a dart could have the slightest chance of being that close to the track. 

I don't think anyone can fault the action of the safety team. Yeah, one marshal on the back side looked a bit hesitant for a few seconds, but the guys on the other side were right in the ball, knocking the fire back just enough to give Grosjean the time he needed and to help him out. This could have been so, so much worse. If it had happened a lap later, he'd have been in much worse shape. 

The remains of that front section were amazing. First, that he got out. Second, that with an impact like that it held up so well. 

I agree that Armco was intended for highway use - but the accident did happen on a straight where you would expect a glancing blow and not a head-on. This hit at just the worst spot and it was an F1 car that is able to change direction like very few other cars. Had the wall been parallel to the track, I don't think it would have been a problem. This was an exceptionally low-percentage accident, so having Armco there is understandable.