Bahrain GP

And that was only a small release of fuel too, not the split fuel tanks of old. Very lucky boy.

There will be quite a few changes come out of that accident.
Likely changes to:
Barriers will almost certainly end up bolted together. (some UK hillclimb tracks use conveyor belting on wooden barriers to stop single seaters punching through, eg, Doune)

Gloves, almost certainly upgraded , hands ankles and necks are the weak points in fire protection, suits are 3 layer plus underwear so plenty of air gapping. None on gloves, or the cuffs at ankles (why you see some drivers pull their suit cuffs down over their boots.)

Should certainly be a review of fire procedures, you hit fuel with powder to extinguish, then cool with foam to prevent reignition. I didn't see any foam in use at all unless that was all shown off camera.
And you don't fire powder at people as one guy did when the med team were guiding Grosjean away, again foam, because it cools. There was a lot of smoke coming off Grosjean, but geez.

If you ever do any fire training folks, the powder is non toxic, it gets in your mouth. Spit, do not Swallow. Keep plenty of water handy, swirl and spit.
Why? It makes you "regular" . For a Week.
Hope there's plenty of toilets at Bahrain this week for everyone involved in that incident.

Strange Grosjean might get a race next weekend and Hamilton won't.
 
I’ve watched a lot of content on YouTube about F1 crashes and comings together and a common thread through many of them is the big lack of reward view. It is time the FIA and F1 got together to enforce improvements in this area. At the very least it would mean less visits to the Stewards office.

Tony.
 
I can't really think of a way that would improve rewards view Tony.
 
The mirrors they have are virtually useless though Mike, it can’t be so difficult to improve the rewards view for the clever people who make these cars?

Tony.
 
Driving blind isn’t really a skill, it’s a lottery and sooner rather than later some one loses out. If Grosjean had been able to see Kivyat he wouldn’t have needed the Halo because he wouldn’t have run over his front wheel and got chucked into the Armco. Also if Stroll had seen Kivyat he would not have ended up upside down either.

Tony.
 
There's no arguing the horrific nature and potential consequences of this accident. There will be big lessons learned to improve safety.

It seems that barrier itself contributed directly to the seriousness of the outcome for a number of reasons. It simply shouldn't be possible to prise apart the sections to such a degree that part of the car can get through. That is where this became so serious. Only testament to the halo and its strength that prevented a much worse outcome, but, the driver cell simply shouldn't be able to get through any gap, never mind widen it in such a way.

Only because it did is the reason why the rear of the car was torn off - but, that too could have been worse. Had the engine followed the driver cell through it would have been impossible to get out the cockpit. But, it seems likely that because the engine sheared off the rear of the car like that, it allowed fuel to be ejected possibly from the fuel tank probably due to high pressure within the system and so causing the fireball. But, again, it could have been much worse. The batteries could also easily have exploded into flames from the pressures. We all know what happens t lithium batteries when you put them under pressure.

Hindsight is a perfect science of course. The accident here started with a driver mistake. The energy involved from thereon in put an potentially unsuitable or even unsafe barrier in play where maybe it wouldn't normally be expected to be a risk. Maybe, though shouldn't be a consideration.

Am sure that barriers at all tracks will now come under great scrutiny. Not just their construction but also the configuration relative to the track. The barrier here was angled to the track in the same way as Kubica's accident in 2007. That was concrete and simply catapulted the car across and down the track.

The tyre and conveyor belt type barriers absorb a massive amount of energy, but, any car hitting them tends the get buried under all that making to hard to get to any car or driver. No easy answers or solutions.
 
They need to learn some lessons and some will be more expensive than others. Some times the less expensive things get over looked.

Tony.
 
t-tony said:
They need to learn some lessons and some will be more expensive than others. Some times the less expensive things get over looked.

Tony.
Click to expand...
Understand what you say about mirrors, but, on the first few corners, simply diving across the track, not just one, or even two car widths or more, even with mirrors, is potentially or arguably reckless. Possibly heat of the moment and an an unwise move at that stage of the race is what triggered the accident - we may never know. Arguably, or more kindly, the move was a racing incident. There would, you might expect, be some awareness that there might already be a car moving into that space even if it can't be seen in mirrors. That's all part of the millions of calculations done by these drivers in the first moments of a race. Good or bad - they still do have mirrors and they do know what moves and lines drivers may normally take. Simply ignoring the possibility of other cars behind or beside you might be just naive. I don't know. Race drivers will be race drivers - even in the lower grid positions. I think at that very early point, drivers are only looking ahead of them. It is natural driving skills and positional awareness that come into play on how they race. It is part of motor racing and especially so in open-wheel form.

That said, you simply couldn't expect the outcome of that scale. The barrier was there to protect the drivers and others - no-one could have expected to dramatically amplify the seriousness of the initial error when it should have worked quite differently and acted to reduce the impact in a more controlled manner.

Root cause of the accident was or seems to be driver input - whatever the cause. The root cause of the seriousness and outcome of the accident looks to be the barrier itself. Drivers will always be the cause of accidents. That same outcome could be caused again by a different set of circumstances. It is a risk that can be reduced and mitigated. It is something I would hope that should not be repeated with the same outcome even though drivers themselves will cause spectacular accidents.
 
Perhaps they just need to remove Kivyat?;)

Tony.
 
Redline said:
It is something I would hope that should not be repeated with the same outcome even though drivers themselves will cause spectacular accidents.
Click to expand...

I agree with most of what you have written, but not with this.

I think everything worked as well as could be expected - except Grosjean and (possibly) the Armco.

Armco is designed to absorb AND deflect the energy. It seems to have failed to deflect. I would have expected an impact of around 30 degrees to be capable of deflecting. There will be a technical specification that tells us the maximum angle of attack that will be deflected/absorbed for a given kinetic energy (0.5mv²). This is what I think should have happened...


If the angle of attack is too large, the Armco would act as a wall if it is not designed to fail - you don't want that to happen. It was better for the Armco to split than to remain intact if the maximum angle had been reached. Every mm further before you stop, the better. He travelled about a metre into the Armco before stopping. This would have reduced the deceleration significantly.

It's not the falling that kills you - it's the sudden stop. If you can turn it into a gradual stop, perhaps you can survive. He survived.
 
Pingu said:
I agree with most of what you have written, but not with this.

I think everything worked as well as could be expected - except Grosjean and (possibly) the Armco.

Armco is designed to absorb AND deflect the energy. It seems to have failed to deflect. I would have expected an impact of around 30 degrees to be capable of deflecting. There will be a technical specification that tells us the maximum angle of attack that will be deflected/absorbed for a given kinetic energy (0.5mv²). This is what I think should have happened...


If the angle of attack is too large, the Armco would act as a wall if it is not designed to fail - you don't want that to happen. It was better for the Armco to split than to remain intact if the maximum angle had been reached. Every mm further before you stop, the better. He travelled about a metre into the Armco before stopping. This would have reduced the deceleration significantly.

It's not the falling that kills you - it's the sudden stop. If you can turn it into a gradual stop, perhaps you can survive. He survived.
Click to expand...
Agree with the issues on the Armco itself (it has saved countless lives including mine after hitting the barrier both sides the motorway in Italy), but, that barrier takes no account of the current design of F1 cars. It is designed for a much greater area of impact, not the sharp nose design of current cars right at the height of the gap between layers. It is designed for flat fronted cars with a greater area of impact to spread and deflect the load. Here the load is applied in a much smaller area and on the gap between rails - like hammering a chisel between two bits of wood. Also, here it was already at a significant angle to the track no not capable of accepting and deflecting the loads applied. The two things here together allowed the car to penetrate through. it isn’t that Armco is inherently unsafe. It is where it was applied considering the other factors. It didn’t seem to deform in the way expected nor could it given fact that maximum load was applied between the layers rather than against them. F1 cars look to me as though they are now incompatible with Armco And the installation there presented additional risks of presenting a wall (even not in a position on the track where you would normally expect cars to fly off) to any cars due to the angle to the track to accommodate the service road. All an unfortunate set of circumstances that I hope can be learned from to improve track design for everyone involved.
 
I agree that Armco may be incompatible, but this was a single event - and despite a 73g impact, the driver survived with minor injuries. In my book, that's a win.

It was never designed to take a frontal impact. For as long as standard Armco sections are used, there will be a gap. Even if the gap is not at nose height, the force of such an impact would twist the Armco and form a gap. Off the top of my head, a solution to reducing the likelyhood of the Armco being pierced would be to make the three-tier section into a single tier. This may have the undesired effect of creating a wall, which would increase the deceleration forces.

I suspect that the same crash into the concrete barrier replacements would have had a very different result.
 
Pingu said:
I agree that Armco may be incompatible, but this was a single event - and despite a 73g impact, the driver survived with minor injuries. In my book, that's a win.

It was never designed to take a frontal impact. For as long as standard Armco sections are used, there will be a gap. Even if the gap is not at nose height, the force of such an impact would twist the Armco and form a gap. Off the top of my head, a solution to reducing the likelyhood of the Armco being pierced would be to make the three-tier section into a single tier. This may have the undesired effect of creating a wall, which would increase the deceleration forces.

I suspect that the same crash into the concrete barrier replacements would have had a very different result.
Click to expand...
Don’t disagree. It’s a one off until next time though. Armco works because sections are bolted together which allows them to stretch over each other to a limited degree at the ends allowing the mid sections to deform. They could do the same in the vertical plane allowing it to separate a bit but not allow a hole to be formed if pierced. Do that between the posts and it forms a mesh. The horizontal performance remains the same. The vertical separation is limited to but still allows it to work as it does now horizontally. Not an expensive enhancement to existing installations.
 
F1 has been so predictable lately that I just can't be bothered. As for safety I just don't see that improvements will make any difference, drivers under so much pressure that risks then human error are the order of the day. Shame when crashes makes it so much more newsworthy.
 
Part of the allure of any motorsport for the fans whether we like to admit that or not.

Tony.
 
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