Official 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix Thread **SPOILERS**

[cuprabob]

North West Tom said:

This is why I'm a bit 'relieved' that it happened to one of the most experienced drivers on the grid. Whilst I know they're all highly-trained professionals, I think some of the younger drivers might have struggled a bit more than Romain did.

... and not wishing to make light of the crash but I don't think there is anyone else on the grid with more experience of climbing out of a crashed car than Romain

Edited by cuprabob on Monday 30th November 15:48

[Exige77]

cuprabob said:

North West Tom said:

This is why I'm a bit 'relieved' that it happened to one of the most experienced drivers on the grid. Whilst I know they're all highly-trained professionals, I think some of the younger drivers might have struggled a bit more than Romain did.

... and not wishing to make light of the crash but I don't think there is anyone elso on the grid with more experience of climbing out of a crashed car than Romain

Very true

[kiseca]

cuprabob said:

North West Tom said:

This is why I'm a bit 'relieved' that it happened to one of the most experienced drivers on the grid. Whilst I know they're all highly-trained professionals, I think some of the younger drivers might have struggled a bit more than Romain did.

... and not wishing to make light of the crash but I don't think there is anyone elso on the grid with more experience of climbing out of a crashed car than Romain

Was typing something similar but I guess I killed the webpage instead of pressing submit. I'm quite looking forward to hearing Romain's account of this one, assuming it's not painful for him. I guess it depends whether he reacts like a racing driver and recalls his awesome shunt with some excitement, or if he reacts like a human and has nightmares about it. I believe being trapped in a fire is one of the most traumatic experiences a person can have.

[angrymoby]

Eric Mc said:

angrymoby said:

you wont have seen many '94 - '09 due to refueling & light fuel loads (ironically banned on safety grounds)

In fact, up until yesterday, all the fire related incidents after 1989 were due to refueling cockups.

well, one involved Benetton so not sure of how much of an actual cock up that was

& whilst spectacular i dont think we came close to seeing anyone in the pitlane that close to death ...which can't be said about Grosjean as how long did that car burn until finally fully extinguished?

[Zoobeef]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIMWeI3If66/?igshid=ll...

You can see him moving around in the fire getting out in 2 different shots at the start of this video on the F1 page.

[grumpy52]

p1stonhead said:

How can someone actually survive 53g? I don’t get it.

I assume it was for a fraction of a second, but still!

Hans Device
It did exactly what it was designed to do. In the past (pre Hans) the head plus the weight of the crash helmet would have whipped around with such force that it would have ruptured the root of the brain. Many of the deaths in IndyCar racing were because of this injury .
The vast percentage of the safety stuff worked yesterday , hence the driver walked away .

[jingars]

kiseca said:

I can't imagine the Indy screen would have been any use in that crash

I think that the Indy/Red Bull aeroscreen is a "ballistic" shield in front of a halo-style structure:


Indycar has had some issues with drivers getting overly hot and I am unsure whether they have "properly" raced in the rain with it, but I don't think it is in any way less safe in an accident that the halo - and at one event earlier this year I recall Marcus Ericsson travelling through a shower of debris which may have impacted with his helmet had the screen not been in place.

[Eric Mc]

angrymoby said:

well, one involved Benetton so not sure of how much of an actual cock up that was

It was a cock-up - brought about by cheating.

I did mention that in an earlier post.

[Sandpit Steve]

I feel sorry for Dr. Roberts, he had to waste ten minutes of his life talking to Piers Morgan this morning.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=o8o3RhlQgG0

(Actually some very good comments from the Doc, if you mute the other idiot. That’s two bravery awards we should be nominating him for).

[TheDeuce]

NRS said:

Murghee said:

After watching the replays of roman getting out i still dont know he managed to do so physically. The g force impact should have knocked him out cold and sitting in a seat with flames all around would have frozen/panicked the life out of me...guess the drivers train themselves mentally to control their fears and surge of adrenaline when they have an accident. Its remarkable.

I would guess most people in that situation still conscious would be trying to get out quickly. There's a difference between being in something burning and needing to try and get out, and say turning up at a horrific accident and freezing/not helping due to the stress.

Quite right - either you're unconscious or you're moving bloody fast to get out when you're at the core of flameball! And the healthy dose of adrenaline to overcome anything that catches or sticks as you extricate yourself. I'm sure people have dislocated joints and broken bones trying to get free of a nasty situation in a life or death moment.

Good job he managed it. With the best will in the world, a fire that hot could have finished him off way before the marshals could really get on top if it. He was pretty much himself the only person that could help him fast enough when it mattered.

[Sandpit Steve]

Eric Mc said:

angrymoby said:

well, one involved Benetton so not sure of how much of an actual cock up that was

It was a cock-up - brought about by cheating.

I did mention that in an earlier post.

That was a conspiracy rather than a cockup.

The FIA afterwards examined the rig as it was stripped, and it turned out that part of the safety mechanism of the hose/car interface was missing - which, totally co-incidentally, had the effect of allowing a higher fuel flow rate into the car.

Then they checked every fuel rig in the pit lane, and found a few more of them similarly ‘misassembled’.

[Munter]

grumpy52 said:

Hans Device
It did exactly what it was designed to do. In the past (pre Hans) the head plus the weight of the crash helmet would have whipped around with such force that it would have ruptured the root of the brain. Many of the deaths in IndyCar racing were because of this injury .
The vast percentage of the safety stuff worked yesterday , hence the driver walked away .

It's kind of amazing how peoples "pet projects" if you like, all evolved into systems that worked together yesterday.

You have the higher/softer driver headrest Sid Watkins pushed for to reduce brain injuries.
HANS that was developed external to F1. That nobody wanted for something like a decade before it took off.
Halo (Charlie)
Nomex
Carbon Fiber
Stupidly fast estate cars
Loads more stuff

All fit together into a system, that means you can strap a man into a device you'll then throw into a barrier at 130+mph, pour 3+ litres of burning petrol around him, and a few hours later he's releasing a video going "my hands are going to sting in the morning."

[Murghee]

Munter said:

grumpy52 said:

Hans Device
It did exactly what it was designed to do. In the past (pre Hans) the head plus the weight of the crash helmet would have whipped around with such force that it would have ruptured the root of the brain. Many of the deaths in IndyCar racing were because of this injury .
The vast percentage of the safety stuff worked yesterday , hence the driver walked away .

It's kind of amazing how peoples "pet projects" if you like, all evolved into systems that worked together yesterday.

You have the higher/softer driver headrest Sid Watkins pushed for to reduce brain injuries.
HANS that was developed external to F1. That nobody wanted for something like a decade before it took off.
Halo (Charlie)
Nomex
Carbon Fiber
Stupidly fast estate cars
Loads more stuff

All fit together into a system, that means you can strap a man into a device you'll then throw into a barrier at 130+mph, pour 3+ litres of burning petrol around him, and a few hours later he's releasing a video going "my hands are going to sting in the morning."

Just a shame that to get above results some of it is reaction to accidents already happened. But guess life is about learning from current events.

Guess only way to make the barriers safer is to have some sort of slime that puts anything it contacts with to a dead stop. Or big marshmellow type barriers that absorb all the impact like black panthers vibranium suit.

[Roofless Toothless]

I think the halo would have saved Dan Wheldon. That’s a loss that still upsets me greatly.

[Sandpit Steve]

Murghee said:

Just a shame that to get above results some of it is reaction to accidents already happened. But guess life is about learning from current events.

Guess only way to make the barriers safer is to have some sort of slime that puts anything it contacts with to a dead stop. Or big marshmellow type barriers that absorb all the impact like black panthers vibranium suit.

An awful of lot safety regulation is written in blood, the push in the ‘70s started when F1 people got fed up going to so many funerals. But that’s how we develop as humans, we can only thank the long list of people who have contributed to F1 safety over the years - many of whom are sadly no longer with us. But Romain Grosjean is with us, thanks to the collective efforts of everyone who keeps pushing to make the sport safer.

We see similar things in areas like aviation, where (apart from this year!) the industry continues to expand massively, yet there are fewer and fewer fatal accidents - because every time there’s a plane crash, it gets analysed methodically and reported upon, and changes made where necessary to stop that accident happening again.

[kiseca]

Munter said:

grumpy52 said:

Hans Device
It did exactly what it was designed to do. In the past (pre Hans) the head plus the weight of the crash helmet would have whipped around with such force that it would have ruptured the root of the brain. Many of the deaths in IndyCar racing were because of this injury .
The vast percentage of the safety stuff worked yesterday , hence the driver walked away .

It's kind of amazing how peoples "pet projects" if you like, all evolved into systems that worked together yesterday.

You have the higher/softer driver headrest Sid Watkins pushed for to reduce brain injuries.
HANS that was developed external to F1. That nobody wanted for something like a decade before it took off.
Halo (Charlie)
Nomex
Carbon Fiber
Stupidly fast estate cars
Loads more stuff

All fit together into a system, that means you can strap a man into a device you'll then throw into a barrier at 130+mph, pour 3+ litres of burning petrol around him, and a few hours later he's releasing a video going "my hands are going to sting in the morning."

That's a great list, and also, don't forget the self sealing fuel bags - I guess we need to wait and see how much fuel did escape to put judgement on this incident but the fact this is the first car fire since Berger is astonishing - and six point racing harnesses, and drivers legs behind the front axle line, and crash testing (which I think owed something to Max Mosley?)

That's another thing I was thinking after the accident. Haas aren't the best funded team on the grid, and historically there were cars that you'd prefer to be in, and cars you'd prefer not to be in, if you were going to have a shunt. Lotus was the famous one in the '60s, but still for me, I'd expect a Merc to be better put together than a Haas because there's so much more budget behind it. Maybe that's a false impression, but I was even more impressed he got out because it was a Haas than I would have been if it had been a Merc or a Ferrari.

But then that could be a false security. I think there are very few designers who would be willing to sacrifice a gram of performance in favour of safety. In fact the only designer who I've ever heard say he deliberately makes his cars stronger to protect the driver was John Barnard.

[angrymoby]

Sandpit Steve said:

That was a conspiracy rather than a cockup.

The FIA afterwards examined the rig as it was stripped, and it turned out that part of the safety mechanism of the hose/car interface was missing - which, totally co-incidentally, had the effect of allowing a higher fuel flow rate into the car.

Then they checked every fuel rig in the pit lane, and found a few more of them similarly ‘misassembled’.

afaiaa only Benetton had removed the filter, regardless of what caused the rig to fail ...but it's been a while since i read the 'mechanics tale' (& even then that's a Benetton's mechanics version of events)

[ToastMan76]

Zoobeef said:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIMWeI3If66/?igshid=ll...

You can see him moving around in the fire getting out in 2 different shots at the start of this video on the F1 page.

This changes my thoughts on the whole thing - again - and proves - again - that my armchair speculation is completely poor compared to what the experts have designed to happen.

I was 100% convinces GRO was ko’d for 5-10s until that Insta you can see him pulling the belt and steering wheel off seconds after the crash. For him to be i. A position to even think about that let alone do it is testament to how well trained he is and how well designed these cars are.

Also shows me up again because the medical crew reacted so fast so I do retract my earlier comments on them feeling slow - I guess the adrenaline of yesterday and the slow mo replays are deceptive.

[StevieBee]

ToastMan76 said:

Zoobeef said:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIMWeI3If66/?igshid=ll...

You can see him moving around in the fire getting out in 2 different shots at the start of this video on the F1 page.

This changes my thoughts on the whole thing - again - and proves - again - that my armchair speculation is completely poor compared to what the experts have designed to happen.

I was 100% convinces GRO was ko’d for 5-10s until that Insta you can see him pulling the belt and steering wheel off seconds after the crash. For him to be i. A position to even think about that let alone do it is testament to how well trained he is and how well designed these cars are.
.

I'll weigh in with a bit of armchair assessment.

I wouldn't bind betting that there's an odd paradox in that the barrier was actually beneficial. 53g was recorded at impact but IIRC, the device that measures this is behind the driver's seat - the bit that split away. The rest of the car piercing the barriers would have slowed him down at a slower rate. Had the same accident occurred into the concrete walls that were put there afterwards, I think that deceleration would had lead to an entirely different outcome, regardless of Halo.

Has anyone mentioned the visuals? It seems superfluous I know but my word they were spectacular. The slow-mo of Grosjean emerging from the flames ..... if ever he feels un-manly in the future, he should watch that.

[Hereward]

ToastMan76 said:

Zoobeef said:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIMWeI3If66/?igshid=ll...

You can see him moving around in the fire getting out in 2 different shots at the start of this video on the F1 page.

This changes my thoughts on the whole thing - again - and proves - again - that my armchair speculation is completely poor compared to what the experts have designed to happen.

I was 100% convinces GRO was ko’d for 5-10s until that Insta you can see him pulling the belt and steering wheel off seconds after the crash. For him to be i. A position to even think about that let alone do it is testament to how well trained he is and how well designed these cars are.

Also shows me up again because the medical crew reacted so fast so I do retract my earlier comments on them feeling slow - I guess the adrenaline of yesterday and the slow mo replays are deceptive.

Your username is apt since it takes a Man to be mature enough to correct themselves.

Anyway, armchair expertise is why sport is so pleasurable to watch. We can immediately shout at the telly and tell the player/ref/etc how they should be doing their job!