10 ms·

> After hitting the guardrail at about 137mph (220km/h), Grosjean's car ripped in half and then burst into flames—something that hasn't happened for over 30 yea

> After hitting the guardrail at about 137mph (220km/h), Grosjean's car ripped in half and then burst into flames—something that hasn't happened for over 30 years. To make matters worse, the front half penetrated between the guardrails that lined this section of track. As crashes go, this one was more reminiscent of the bad-old days of F1, the kind that claimed the lives of drivers like Roger Williamson or Francois Cevert. This.....just sounds so horrific and a nightmare scenario for the driver. At that speed I wonder how much of a sense a driver has of going through this experience vs it's over in an instant. Overall, it's a testament to engineering, that a person can walk away alive from a crash like this.

cjbconnor 6y ago
I've spun off the track going about 50mph before and my dad's spun at about 120mph. We both agree that there's a split second where you realize something's gone wrong but after that your training kicks in and you take your hands off the wheel/push in the brake/clutch. The spin itself doesn't exactly happen instantaneously, but it feels like it's over pretty quick. Once the car stops it can take a second or two to get your bearings, figure out which way the car is facing, etc.
mschuster91 6y ago
> Overall, it's a testament to engineering, that a person can walk away alive from a crash like this. Not just to engineering, but also the training and performance of all the track stewards - first person to put a fire extinguisher on the wreck was 7 (!) seconds after the crash. That's unbelievably fast. Grosjean survived due to every person and every piece of technology working exactly as they should.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  > Grosjean survived due to every person and every piece of technology working exactly as they should. I think this misses a couple of key points. The only reason his car tore in half and caught fire was because the barrier failed spectacularly. It’s absolutely not supposed to do that. LeClerc had a bigger crash in Monza this year, and it wasn’t nearly as dramatic. So this incident was caused by a piece of safety technology failing catastrophically, with a whole bunch of other safety tech working as intended to save his life. Also it’s good the marshals and medical crew were there so quickly (as the medical car follows the pack on the first lap). But they basically contributed nothing to Grosjean’s survival. He was completely engulfed in flames for 18 seconds. He survived because his flame protection worked (he got his burns from using his hands to climb over the hot barrier, not from exposure to flames), and because he wasn’t incapacitated by the crash. If he had been knocked unconscious or injured too badly to move, he would have burnt to death in there. The couple of fire extinguishers they had on the car weren’t doing anything to a fire of that size.
  - nafey 6y ago
    Can you please explain how the barrier failed in a bit more detail?
    - thspimpolds 6y ago
      It caught his nose between one of the ribbons of rail. That caused his car to pierce the barrier instead of having its energy dissipated. Also there is a theory that the pole holding up the rails didnt shear off at all and thats why the car got snapped in half.
    - tsomctl 6y ago
      I'd say it's didn't necessarily fail, it was just a bad design. It consisted of steel posts in the ground, with stamped steel sections running horizontally. Grosjean's car got wedged in between two of the horizontal rails. It actually succeeded in stopping the 150 mph car from flying off into the desert. In comparison, a smooth concrete barrier would cause the car to just slide along it (hopefully).
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      Well you’d expect the barrier to either be rigid enough to survive the impact (like a concrete barrier would) and have the cars safety features absorb the impact, or to crumple in a way that absorbs the impact. To me it seems like the Armco is just a bad barrier for that part of the track, because when he hit it, his car penetrated between the horizontal parts of the barrier, but the chassis was torn in half when it encountered resistance from the upright support beam (which really should have given way as well). I don’t know if this Armco wasn’t up to spec, but the way this barrier performed, it made the crash as bad is it could possibly have been. Compare this crash to LeClerc binning it at a similar speed/angle into the tire barrier at Monza. https://youtu.be/K0WzAatudAo https://youtu.be/K0WzAatudAo It seems that literally any other sort of barrier would have performed better here, and since this is a fast part of the track, you’d typically expect this to be something that had already been considered.
      - justin66 6y ago
- marklubi 6y ago
  > Not just to engineering, but also the training and performance of all the track stewards - first person to put a fire extinguisher on the wreck was 7 (!) seconds after the crash. That's unbelievably fast. The crash was at an access road for one, but the bigger part of being there so fast is thanks in part to the medical car that stages on the track and starts with the cars, but behind the field. They follow the racers around for the first lap so that they’re almost immediately at the scene of any crash.
spaetzleesser 6y ago
I have crashed with my cart pretty bad. At some point I realized that I will go off track and looked where it will be going. I remember looking for a way out but then I saw the wall and took my hands off the wheel right before impact. It was over pretty quickly and most what I did was just instincts from driving. Only after the crash I put everything together consciously. I would imagine the same for Grosjean. It’s all automated responses.
- kreeben 6y ago
  Why is taking your hands of the wheel such a good thing to do in a situation like this? Is it because the spin of the vehicle would be over with sooner if you let it have its way?
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    it's to prevent injuries to your thumbs/wrists.
  - piva00 6y ago
    It's because the driving wheel jerk from the front wheels being forced to turn will break your thumbs and/or other fingers. You instinctively take your hands off the wheel if you have raced karts enough to get into a crash where you hurt your thumbs, that or you've trained to do it. I even do it on racing sims some times, completely out of instinct.
  - o-__-o 6y ago
    Everyone’s talking about go karts (and older cars) but this is not the problem with modern drive by wire cars (in an emergency my car will shutdown the electronic steering module which will only give me like 10 degrees of steering, lock-to-lock). The real issue is with the airbag destroying your hands/wrists and chemical burns that come along with it.

cjbconnor 6y ago

I've spun off the track going about 50mph before and my dad's spun at about 120mph. We both agree that there's a split second where you realize something's gone wrong but after that your training kicks in and you take your hands off the wheel/push in the brake/clutch. The spin itself doesn't exactly happen instantaneously, but it feels like it's over pretty quick. Once the car stops it can take a second or two to get your bearings, figure out which way the car is facing, etc.

mschuster91 6y ago

> Overall, it's a testament to engineering, that a person can walk away alive from a crash like this. Not just to engineering, but also the training and performance of all the track stewards - first person to put a fire extinguisher on the wreck was 7 (!) seconds after the crash. That's unbelievably fast. Grosjean survived due to every person and every piece of technology working exactly as they should.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
> Grosjean survived due to every person and every piece of technology working exactly as they should. I think this misses a couple of key points. The only reason his car tore in half and caught fire was because the barrier failed spectacularly. It’s absolutely not supposed to do that. LeClerc had a bigger crash in Monza this year, and it wasn’t nearly as dramatic. So this incident was caused by a piece of safety technology failing catastrophically, with a whole bunch of other safety tech working as intended to save his life. Also it’s good the marshals and medical crew were there so quickly (as the medical car follows the pack on the first lap). But they basically contributed nothing to Grosjean’s survival. He was completely engulfed in flames for 18 seconds. He survived because his flame protection worked (he got his burns from using his hands to climb over the hot barrier, not from exposure to flames), and because he wasn’t incapacitated by the crash. If he had been knocked unconscious or injured too badly to move, he would have burnt to death in there. The couple of fire extinguishers they had on the car weren’t doing anything to a fire of that size.
- nafey 6y ago
  Can you please explain how the barrier failed in a bit more detail?
  - thspimpolds 6y ago
    It caught his nose between one of the ribbons of rail. That caused his car to pierce the barrier instead of having its energy dissipated. Also there is a theory that the pole holding up the rails didnt shear off at all and thats why the car got snapped in half.
  - tsomctl 6y ago
    I'd say it's didn't necessarily fail, it was just a bad design. It consisted of steel posts in the ground, with stamped steel sections running horizontally. Grosjean's car got wedged in between two of the horizontal rails. It actually succeeded in stopping the 150 mph car from flying off into the desert. In comparison, a smooth concrete barrier would cause the car to just slide along it (hopefully).
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    Well you’d expect the barrier to either be rigid enough to survive the impact (like a concrete barrier would) and have the cars safety features absorb the impact, or to crumple in a way that absorbs the impact. To me it seems like the Armco is just a bad barrier for that part of the track, because when he hit it, his car penetrated between the horizontal parts of the barrier, but the chassis was torn in half when it encountered resistance from the upright support beam (which really should have given way as well). I don’t know if this Armco wasn’t up to spec, but the way this barrier performed, it made the crash as bad is it could possibly have been. Compare this crash to LeClerc binning it at a similar speed/angle into the tire barrier at Monza. https://youtu.be/K0WzAatudAo https://youtu.be/K0WzAatudAo It seems that literally any other sort of barrier would have performed better here, and since this is a fast part of the track, you’d typically expect this to be something that had already been considered.
    - justin66 6y ago
marklubi 6y ago
> Not just to engineering, but also the training and performance of all the track stewards - first person to put a fire extinguisher on the wreck was 7 (!) seconds after the crash. That's unbelievably fast. The crash was at an access road for one, but the bigger part of being there so fast is thanks in part to the medical car that stages on the track and starts with the cars, but behind the field. They follow the racers around for the first lap so that they’re almost immediately at the scene of any crash.

spaetzleesser 6y ago

I have crashed with my cart pretty bad. At some point I realized that I will go off track and looked where it will be going. I remember looking for a way out but then I saw the wall and took my hands off the wheel right before impact. It was over pretty quickly and most what I did was just instincts from driving. Only after the crash I put everything together consciously. I would imagine the same for Grosjean. It’s all automated responses.

kreeben 6y ago
Why is taking your hands of the wheel such a good thing to do in a situation like this? Is it because the spin of the vehicle would be over with sooner if you let it have its way?
- leetcrew 6y ago
  it's to prevent injuries to your thumbs/wrists.
- piva00 6y ago
  It's because the driving wheel jerk from the front wheels being forced to turn will break your thumbs and/or other fingers. You instinctively take your hands off the wheel if you have raced karts enough to get into a crash where you hurt your thumbs, that or you've trained to do it. I even do it on racing sims some times, completely out of instinct.
- o-__-o 6y ago
  Everyone’s talking about go karts (and older cars) but this is not the problem with modern drive by wire cars (in an emergency my car will shutdown the electronic steering module which will only give me like 10 degrees of steering, lock-to-lock). The real issue is with the airbag destroying your hands/wrists and chemical burns that come along with it.