There's an elephant in the room when it comes to this week's Motorsport on Monday. Much has been said about the loss
of Ayrton Senna
recently, remembered 20 years on from that tragic May weekend in the middle part of last week. It doesn't need to be repeated, but it got me thinking about some interesting points to do with safety and motorsport.
Spa spectacular as always!
I'll touch on that later, but first, the
World Endurance Championship
hit Spa last weekend and it was
Toyota
that delivered again. Porsche was on pole, with the two Toyota's in second and third, bookended by the second 919 Hybrid.
Qualifying turned up some interesting information, too. With the run from La Source down through Eau Rouge and up the Kemmel Straight to Les Combes doing its best to simulate the long straights of La Sarthe, and Audi debuting its long tail, lower drag Le Mans setup, the speed trap data from qualifying revealed some eye-opening data that will almost certainly be relevant to Le Mans.
Speed is good
We'll stick to kph to begin with. The pole-sitting Porsche clocked 311.2kph, while the pair of Toyotas and the other 919 all recorded an identical 308.6kph. The number three Audi R18 e-tron Quattro - the one car that was running the long tail rear bodywork - hit 302.4kph, while its two 'regular' sister cars were beaten by the non-hybrid LMP1-L Rebellion R-One Toyota. It recorded 294.3kph while the remaining Audi's hit 288 and 285.7kph flat out respectively.
Rumours are that the R18 is the only car of the top three teams that's running an adjustable front wing element, (this is the first year the rules have allowed it, but the device still has to be adjusted manually in the pits). It's not been confirmed, but the TS040 Toyota and the 919 are thought to be sporting a more conventional aero arrangement on the nose, and the speed trap figures could suggest that.
But what does it mean for Le Mans? Well, around an 8.5-mile lap where the cars will be reaching close to terminal velocity on at least four occasions, a 25.5kph - 15.8mph, to put it into context - over 24 hours this is plenty of free time Toyota could gain on its German counterparts.
Of course, Audi's metronomic reliability (it ended up bagging a second place at Spa with Mr Le Mans, Tom Kristensen) and relentless development means we could see a new iteration of bodywork come June, but with Toyota working towards a three-year goal of winning Le Mans, it'll be gunning for top honours.
... but the Toyotas were faster still and took the win
And with plenty of driver confidence after two consecutive victories in the WEC, it stands a good chance. Porsche will be hoping to put a perfectly engineered German spanner in the works, too, and on its debut the Rebellion R-One showed plenty of pace. The reliable customer Toyota engine should mean it'll be there to pick up the pieces for a potential podium. Back-to-back Petit Le Mans victories attest to the team's staying power, even if the R-One chassis is new.
Off-road on-road
Last weekend also marked the start of the World Rallycross Championship. World RX, as it's known, delivered as you'd expect World Rallycross to. Jacques Villeneuve's debut was less than auspicious, sliding off on the first corner, across the dirt and back onto the joker circuit.
Solberg chuffed with World RX triumph!
Petter Solberg will go down in the record books as bagging the first win of the new world championship era. The Norwegian was properly delighted, too. Nice to see a real personality visibly chuffed to win - so much so that he jumped up and down on his car's roof, bowing it beyond belief, after he drove his cool down lap hanging out of the door living up to his "Hollywood" nickname.
Senna and safety
Apart from the weekend, last week was a relatively reflective period as it marked the 20th anniversary of the death of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna.
Senna was the last fatality in Formula One, proving how far safety has come in motorsport. There have been other high profile deaths in top-flight racing since, but the events of Imola '94 was undoubtedly the main driver in spurring on advances in safety.
Advances made since '94 must continue
Schumacher's leg breaking accident may have been a lot worse if it hadn't have been for developments in safety - look at the change in height of the cockpit sides in five years from 1994 for an indication of car strength and advances in crash testing, to what became relatively routine incidents (if you could ever call them that) like Heikki Kovalainen's 150mph crash at Barcelona or Webber getting airborne at Valencia. There's the introduction of the HANS device too.
The risk drivers take every time they venture out onto track can never be belittled, but it can be mitigated. It's easy to forget other factors that detract from the entertainment, but safety shouldn't be one of them. Let's hope developments protecting drivers accelerate at the same rate over the next two decades as they have in the last.