Grand Prix thread Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2020 part 1

....... my bad

 

Is Perez going to make it

 

The gods of fire are well and truly appeased by today’s spectacle.

 

Safety car but too late for max?

 

I think by the time he makes impact, the car is going sideways, but basically goes in to a cheese grater. Thankfully the halo works well, but I'm always concerned that with an unfortunate angle, the halo could direct debris in to the cockpit. Thankfully it didn't.

 

spread that oil Sergio.

 

Flaming crashes, cars upside down, flaming engines... Did somebody put today's race on 80's mode?

 

Driving with the car on fire, that's dedication

 

I was wondering if Mercedes said park after the lap you are on, then Lewis doesn't have to worry about a restart. I am sure they didn't but I was very surprised he went on so long.

 

for the promise of the second seat in 2022

 

With the medical car having been following the pack as it was the first lap, did that play a big part in Grosjean emerging from it with just minor injuries?

 

Not to take anything away from the medical team car people but it looked like Grosjean got himself out and was really just helped off the barrier. I do think the medic helped the marshal operate the fire extinguisher so that might have helped.
On the replays it did appear that some of the marshals were wearing more fire protection equipment and extinguishers. With the heat the fuel produced the temp must have been massive so with their little extinguishers it was difficult to overcome the temp to get close enough to put it out.
Great to see Grosjean speaking from his hospital bed. I hope he makes a speedy recovery and he doesn't have any lasting issues - physical and mental.

 

First thing to say is obviously, thank you to all those who campaigned tirelessly for safety reforms, from Jackie Stewart and Sid Watkins to the present day. The halo was controversial at the time, that debate is thoroughly over now. Grosjean was still supremely lucky this wasn't much worse though.

Going to be interesting to see what safety reforms come out of this incident. The medical car crew wearing open-faced helmets clearly presented an issue with tackling the fire, however rare it is that they arrive early enough to a scene that firefighting is required of them.

The single skin Armco will have to be reviewed too. Was this an issue of installation, that the nose was at the ideal height to be able to open a gap between the metal strips, or are they simply not fit for purpose any more? Tech-Pro barriers are presumably more expensive, but perhaps F1 needs them everywhere?

Also going to be interesting to hear what Grosjean's account of the incident with Kvyat is. There was speculation that Kvyat was in a blind spot for Grosjean. The quality of the wing mirrors has been criticised a lot over the years, from flimsy struts that made them move too much to be useful, to the actual size of the mirror itself, to Turkey a fortnight ago where they were so covered in muck that they weren't usable. The aero loss of introducing a standardised, much larger mirror would be marginal, it's hard to see an argument against it. Or do away with a mirror entirely and install cameras, with screens on the driver "dash".

 

Initially, I thought he was sideways when he actually impacted the barrier, but it seems it was almost head on, so the nose will have separated the armco. That steel is like sending a car through a shredder at that point, so yes, thank God for the halo today. But imagine hitting that armco at a seam, and that portion being directed under the Halo. It doesn't bear thinking about. Though the Indy aero screen isn't ideal, it may be worth looking at something along those lines in the long run.

First thing that needs to change though is the barriers.

 

I think the overall safety advancements over the last 20 some years and a massive amount of luck are what saved him to be honest. What it's exposed is that it's time to rethink steel armco.

 

There will be some incredibly detailed scrutiny both of the wreckage of the car and the barrier because for all the computer simulations and other tests there hasn't been a real world accident like this one for a long time.

The reasons for the fire, the reasons the car failed in the way it did (Wolff suggested the car is designed so it can split in half but it didn't split in the way it was designed, where the engine should separate from the chassis), the reasons the barrier failed.

At the end of it all there will be new regulations for all of these elements, and if there is a positive it's the real-world data they will get from this.

 

I can see cameras and mirrors in case the cameras fail. You can see Grosjean's intentions in the direction he took, avoid the car coming back on and lets have a cheeky peek up the inside. 137 mph is not the fastest that car could be travelling at. 53 G I think they said, that his neck didn't break even with the neck support, that he wasn't winded to the point of temporary paralysis whilst getting his breath back in a furnance. His survival is a miracle even with the safety features. You saw how Stroll struggled to get out. It is evidence Grosjean's adrenalin rush must have been a factor in saving him. Really thankful he made it.

 

you'd be surprised what the human body can take, you can survive over 45g for a few seconds, even though your body will weigh over 3 tons! Indy crashes regularly measure over 100, the highest measured over 200g.

 

Interesting video here that someone has made with a 3D animated rendering of Grosjean's crash. It's been made using observations from video rather than any other telemetry but looks plausible to me. An interesting look at what happened to the car and how that halo saved us from an awful tragedy.

 

Shows how the survival element might have worked. Big question as to why the engine did not break away when the rear broke away. I guess the head on slowed the car to the point there was insufficient force to break away the engine.