Quite right Miggins. A Super Licence is required to compete in F1, which includes all practice sessions at an event; but does not include independent tests or assessments. However, it is my belief that Maria di Villota holds a Grade A competition Licence, so it is quite wrong to consider her licence status as a relevant indicator of driving ability or in any way contributory to this awful accident. It is very possible that there may have been some kind of failure or systems glitch which contributed in part or whole. I would not be surprised if anti-stall kicked in, since it appears to have been at precisely the speed where it can happen. If this was the case, she will have been aware of it before impact but without the necessary steering lock, will have had little or no chance to do much about avoiding the truck.
TBH I didn't think they'd let her drive one if they didn't think she could, I was just a bit surprised to find an F1 test driver without one. As to the crash, until we know more we can do little more than guess, we all know F1 cars aren't designed for going 10mph, I'm also a bit surprised that no one thought of this possibility. I'm glad she's ok, probably very shaken, and very lucky she didn't slice her head off, when you consider everything it's a very strange accident.
Yes, it could have been a tragedy of the most repulsive kind. I agree about the 'thinking' which laid foundations for this type of incident, but arrangements at Duxford are perhaps less than ideal…
A lot of twittering about "anti-stall", but surely anti-stall does not make the car accelerate to 50mph as eye-witnesses say occurred, but that's my understanding of how it operates and is no doubt incorrect. I mean, twitter has also been trending a solitary video of her throwing her "Athletico Madrid" car off a track by herself, so that's how reliable it is as a source of unbias information.
Eye-witness accounts can be notoriously unreliable as well as exaggerated. Only the telemetry will give real clues about details. "50mph" appears a considerable exaggeration, to me. N.B. Sometimes a sudden lack of deceleration can wrongly be interpreted as 'acceleration', since in also involves a transfer of weight toward the rear of the car; which can be noticed 'instinctively' by onlookers.
But if you look objectively at the facts, you have the thoughts of twitter and your conjectured construction, or a set of eye-witnesses who I believe were Marussia mechanics and the family of the driver, therefore you'd expect them to know what they saw... I'd anticipate that it was either driver error or a catastrophic software failure, rather than a simple anti-stall explanation based on that. Obviously the latter is more likely, but that might just be my bias because I truly feel the Marussia and HRT shouldn't be allowed to race if their car is more than a second off the midfield runners.
From the images the car pretty much pulled up to a halt and then just accelerated maybe 10m into the back of the lorry. Either it was a very bad driver error or something launched the car in 1st gear out of the blue.
She has lost an eye. Test driver Maria De Villota has lost her right eye as a result of her accident on Tuesday. her team Marussia have confirmed. "Maria emerged from theatre at Addenbrooke's Hospital this morning after a lengthy operation to address the serious head and facial injuries she received in the accident at Duxford Airfield yesterday," said John Booth, Marussia F1 team principal. "We are grateful for the medical attention that Maria has been receiving and her family would like to thank the neurological and plastics surgical teams. However it is with great sadness that I must report that, due to the injuries she sustained, Maria has lost her right eye. "Maria's care and the wellbeing of her family remain our priority at this time. Her family are at the hospital and we are doing everything possible to support them. We ask for everyone's patience and understanding with regard to updates on Maria's condition. We will provide further information when it is appropriate to do so and with consideration for her family. "In the meantime, we would all like to take this opportunity to praise the emergency services at Duxford Airfield, who were on stand-by yesterday, as is usual procedure for a Formula One test. With regard to the accident, we have embarked on a very comprehensive analysis of what happened and this work continues for the moment. Finally, we have been overwhelmed by messages of support for Maria, her family and the Team and we would like to express our sincere gratitude for those." From The Guardian
That's terrible news but it could be much much worse. Here's hoping she pulls through without too much more injury.
I was really hoping that the facial injuries were not too serious but it now sounds horrific and somehow worse with it happening to a woman driver.
With the loss of an eye, I'd say so, unfortunately. I'd imagine that good peripheral vision would be key when it comes to racing. It's quite sad really. Had those injuries been sustained while racing, I'd feel somehow better about it... But in a test it's somehow harder to quantify.
**** sake, I wish every racing driver every health after a crash, an eye lost? Just shows what F1 is really. We should not take it for granted, every one that sits in an F1 car, nobhead or not, does not deserve this.
Yeah... Totally. That's why I get all bent out of shape when people say thinks like "People don't die in F1 anymore". That's what we thought in '94 too. F1 has been lucky in recent years and hasn't really suffered in the same way as many other motor sport. Yes a lot of that is down to safety, and there's also a lot of riding luck. It was extremely fortunate that Massa wasn't killed in '09. Tragedy will hit F1 again one day, probably when we're least expecting. I just hope that time is a long, long, long time coming.
Massa Hungary 2009, Kubica Canada 2007, Schumacher Abu Dhabi 2010..... Maybe the view that these cars should have canopies is not out of the question yet. please log in to view this image I remember this in Bahrain.
Terrible news. Her racing career will definitely be over, having two eyes is vital for depth perception, racing would be impossible without it, that's why Helmut Marko had to retire. Obviously her health is the most important thing at this stage though.
