F1 crashes

J.McClane · 12 Oct 2002, 16:02 (Ref:402082)

Well not just F1 crashes, but crashes on the whole.

Seein' McNish crash in the qualifs eariler had me and a friend chattin' about crashes in motorsport.

Now i think a crash like McNish's is horrific, my friend said it wasn't that bad as he survived.

But i was sayin' that it really doesn't matter if he survived or not, the crash was still horrific.

But it did make me think, what if Senna had survived his crash, would people still consider it as bad as it was given the fact he did die? Would F1 be as safe now if Senna had survived? Why does a man have to die in a crash for a lot of people to see how bad the crash is?

Jordi · 12 Oct 2002, 16:14 (Ref:402091)

Death makes the things big. People don't normally mention Piquet or Alboreto's crashes at Tamburello. They do remind the fire of Berger's or Senna's aftermath.

You saw Ralf jumping over Barrichello at Albert Park, and that was shown everywhere, but every time there's an injury or death there's much more awareness of it.

We all do remember Michael Schumacher broke a leg in '99, but surely not so many people remember Villeneuve and Zonta at Eau Rouge...

ASCII Man · 12 Oct 2002, 17:18 (Ref:402109)

Schumacher broke a leg?
Well thats the first time i hear that...

DMC · 12 Oct 2002, 17:52 (Ref:402129)

Maybe it just wasn't reported in jibberish, ®îjñtjûh.

Sato san · 12 Oct 2002, 18:12 (Ref:402132)

You can have accident that is smaller than McNish's yet stil proves to be fatal .

Its down to luck at the end of the day , If Senna suspension arm hadnt hit his helmet and punctured it then Senna would be alive now . His crash wasnt the biggest of crashes ( even though it was stil a big one ) yet he lost his life !...

McNish was lucky today , if he had of gone in forwards thereis a fair chance he might have lost his life !

LUCK ?

JonesF1 · 12 Oct 2002, 19:11 (Ref:402154)

If McNish had hit the guard rail dead on and at a different angle its possible he couldve died. But Sennas death was a freak accident so really anything is possible.

What bothered me about McNishs crash is that afterwards he was asked if 130R should be changed which of course he said no (props to ashmore). What did everyone think he would say? "Yeah, it scares me." Please, these guys know what theyre doing and they love it.

Its speed that kills and the chassis that saves. 180mph at 130R is hardly any different then 180mph anywhere else. How can they possibly make a track any safer these days other then to turn every GP into the Indy Go-Kart Speedway (granted theres good passing)? Its the chassis that ultimately protects the drivers and they get better every year. Senna and Ratzenberger would probably still be alive if they had been driving a current car. So is changing already modern tracks and building new diluted ones the answer, especially when theres nothing better then an onboard camera view of eau rouge, the parabolica, or 130R? Nope.

Guy Goddard2 · 12 Oct 2002, 19:27 (Ref:402166)

Was McNish crash "driver error" or car failure?

Regards

Guy

Yoong Montoya · 12 Oct 2002, 20:15 (Ref:402200)

Quote:

Originally posted by Guy Goddard2
Was McNish crash "driver error" or car failure?

Regards

Guy

I think it could have been either suspension failure or driver error. Didn't Johnny Herbert have a similar accident in his last grand prix which was caused by suspension failure?

Mal · 12 Oct 2002, 21:18 (Ref:402239)

I am sorry but tracks can be made safer, Mc Nish hit the barrier a some 20 metres to the side of one of the fastest corners in the world. It was damn lucky that he survived and if you noticed there was a grandstand just beyond the bank where the car finished up. F1 was lucky as that could have had far graver consequences. A corner such as that should have far wider run off arears to slow a car down. The Corner can stay the same but give a car a chance to slow down if it goes off, before it hits the barrier.

Brushpusher · 12 Oct 2002, 21:48 (Ref:402253)

Quote:

Originally posted by J.McClane
Well not just F1 crashes, but crashes on the whole.

Seein' McNish crash in the qualifs eariler had me and a friend chattin' about crashes in motorsport.

Now i think a crash like McNish's is horrific, my friend said it wasn't that bad as he survived.

But i was sayin' that it really doesn't matter if he survived or not, the crash was still horrific.

But it did make me think, what if Senna had survived his crash, would people still consider it as bad as it was given the fact he did die? Would F1 be as safe now if Senna had survived? Why does a man have to die in a crash for a lot of people to see how bad the crash is?

If Senna had survived his tragic accident, would he have been happy with the changes to F1 circuits and regulations? All F1 drivers of his era knew the risks and accepted them. It was his sport and the loss of his life was very sad, would he have endorsed the changes, I think not.

Armco Bender · 12 Oct 2002, 22:02 (Ref:402264)

Motor Racing is a tiny bit dangerous.Get Real..

**Spudgun** · 12 Oct 2002, 22:14 (Ref:402272)

Quote:

Originally posted by GuyGoddard2
Was McNish crash "driver error" or car failure?

Classic case of understeer/snap oversteer. I'd say it was more driver error, but then it could be a just something with the set-up of the car which caught him out.

At 185mph, if something went on the rear as I've heard somewhere, I don't think he would have got it back to cause the opposite flick.

This is just my view, but if he was running slicks I don't think it would have happened.

Jordi · 12 Oct 2002, 22:20 (Ref:402278)

it's strange though, he just hit the kerb with the rear tyre and it quickly snapped on him.

I think there should have been more stacks of tyres. How can McNish hit a guardrail? More tyres, please, whole wall covered with tyres, and maybe he wouldn't have flown off the track.

Lee Janotta · 12 Oct 2002, 22:44 (Ref:402292)

Yeah, I think the car just got away from Allan. Driver error, but these cars are pretty hard to handle anyways. Such things are inevitable when you're driving right at your limit. But yeah, with slick and a wider car, yup, I think he could have saved it. These cars are too damn twitchy.

Something I've always said is that Senna's wreck was not that ugly. Drivers this side of the pond survive basically the same almost every weekend in CART, IRL, and the various "stock car" series.

Rubens' was clearly the most spectacular wreck that weekend.

Allan's wreck today is good evidence that the cars are plenty strong enough to protect the drivers, and we don't have to coddle them with stupid gravel traps _everywhere_.

ASCII Man · 12 Oct 2002, 22:55 (Ref:402295)

Like on Imola?
Those chicanes ruined a fantastic track...

The same with Hockenheim...

Lee Janotta · 12 Oct 2002, 23:08 (Ref:402303)

Yup, exactly!

"You have to put in an acre-wide gravel trap... For safety."

"You have to put in a chicane before your signature corner... For safety. Actually, how about we just replace your signature corner _with_ the chicane? You don't want anyone hurt, do you?"

"You have to cut the track in half, knock down hundreds of beautiful trees, and hire Hermann Tilke to take a kart circuit design and blow it up 10x to use as your new layout... For safety."

The fact is that currently the only angles from which an F1 driver is vulnerable are from above, which can't be fixed, and from impacts to the nose from the side, which we could legislate a bit thicker tub to correct. Allan's tub stayed totally intact through a very violent impact, exactly as it was designed to. So why the f

k is the FIA still on this damn safety crusade???

The reason is simple: So that young fans will not know what _real_ tracks look like, and will think that the bland modern autodromes, which will increasily be built outside F1's traditional regions, look just fine. Bernie would love to see F1's history simply dissapear, so that the current "show" will not be held to so high a standard. So, far, it seems to be working.

ASCII Man · 12 Oct 2002, 23:45 (Ref:402314)

Yep, safety above all but this is ridiculous...

RT · 13 Oct 2002, 04:05 (Ref:402376)

I believe we would have lost at least one third of the grid by now if it weren't for the safety changes and improvements in medical care after an accident. Villenueve, Schumacher, Hakkinen, and a few others would be gone by now if it weren't for the safety improvements. I still think Senna would much have preferred to be alive.

The point is most likely how much to spend on track safety. I believe tracks could remain super-fast and be made safer but the amounts of money it would take to redo run-off areas, change barrier design and construction, etc, etc would be much more expensive than sticking a chicane here and a chicane there and ruining the show. There is also a premium for slowing cars bunched up in slow chicanes since it allows the logos and trach-side ads to remain in view while we endure the ruined Hockenheims, Monzas, etc, etc.

Cheers,

RT

Wrex · 13 Oct 2002, 04:31 (Ref:402384)

Lets not forget, that although motorsport is not as exciting as it used to be, it's a hell of alot safer. In the 60's (statistically) we lost a driver every 10 races. Today, 2 of these men would be dead.

These are real people with real families. There is no way I want to go back to that era.

Mr V · 13 Oct 2002, 07:24 (Ref:402422)

Quote:

Originally posted by Guy Goddard2
Was McNish crash "driver error" or car failure?

Driver error, he went into 130R 10km/p/h faster than he did the previous lap.

Quote:

Originally posted by Sato san
LUCK ?

Fate more like!

Number Juan · 13 Oct 2002, 08:06 (Ref:402472)

IMO, make circuits faster - i.e none of those piddly 2nd and 3rd gear corners and put in some very fast/slow combo's to improve slipstreaming, exctiement and racing. on the flip side, spend a lot of time in developing effective circuit safety as well as car safety. this has been done with the introduction of "tarmac traps" basically filling the gravel traps with extra high-friction tarmac.

when you play games like GPL and you race the old circuits like the Nurburgring, it's all too easy to look at the tracks and think "look what we've lost..." right before you out brake yourself and end up in a concrete wall at 80mph+. of course, you just reset the car and think nothing of it other than mild frustration at losing 10 seconds. you would be dead if it was the real thing. i think we've concentrated enough of safety as a knee-jerk to the black weekend, now it is time to improve the racing coupled with the ongoing improvements in driver safety.

what we musn't forget is: F1 is still fatal. Sato was bloody lucky to survive his T-Bone shunt in austria seeing as only his size (being teeny-tiny) saved him from getting out alive, to my memory, Heidfeld's gearbox was in the Jordan cockpit. we also have Burti's near head-on collision at Spa. had he have hit the tyre barriers with 1 row of tyres, he would have surely died IMO. what we have to remember is, though the cars are extremely tough, a driver can only take so much. you can't damn safety unanimously and apportion blame, because without further safety you can't have good races. at least now when someone goes off, it's a matter of "get out of the car and jump over the barrier" as opposed to deep tones in the voices of the commentators.

steve nielsen · 13 Oct 2002, 09:01 (Ref:402547)

Wrex · 13 Oct 2002, 09:15 (Ref:402567)

WOW!!! That really was a big crash.

Armco Bender · 13 Oct 2002, 09:23 (Ref:402573)

Yep on the De Cesaris scale thats a 10.

Jordi · 13 Oct 2002, 09:25 (Ref:402575)

So McNish rolled (or almost) too. I knew it because he was lacking the camera...

BTW, the guardrail you see in the picture was completely covered by tyres today. Good reaction by the Suzuka track.

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