Went to Canadian Grand Prix yesterday, was a mess of a race. My buddy and I were sitting at the hairpin turn and saw pretty much the most horrific accident I have ever seen in person. We were sitting against the fence and just saw this massive pile of carbon fiber and composite material explode into a concrete wall at around 200MPH, go airborne and come tumbling 100+ feet towards us and smash into another wall. The latest said Robert Kubica (The driver) escaped with only a mild concussion and sprained ankle and may drive at indy this coming weekend.


Another note- we got back to our hotel from the race yesterday, and youtube was already plastered with videos of the crash- not even an hour after occurrence. Technology is amazing.

Youtube link

Yeah that was a pretty bad crash.  At least those machines are made to protect the driver in a situation like that.

video no longer available due to copyright claim by f1 management

I've been a F1 fan since the mid 80s.  One of my worst memories is seeing Ayrton Senna's fatal crash on TV in 1995.  Kubica's crash yesterday reminded me of Senna's crash.  The really amazing camera angle was the one that showed the FIRST part of the sequence, where he hit the first wall almost head-on.  I'm not sure that would have been a survivable crash with more speed that Senna hit (185 mph or more).  Lucky he was going "only" 120 or so.

It's fantastic the advances that have been made in car construction and safety barriers in the last fifteen years.  Hopefully driver fatalities will become even more rare.

Did you enjoy Montreal?  I had a short vacation there last summer with my son.  Beautiful city!

They were saying that if that had occured 10 years ago, he would have been dead for sure. In the grandstands, it was pure shock and silence- especially on the track named for the hometown F1 champ who died in a crash almost identically, except he got tossed out of the car somehow. (Gilles Villneuve)

Montreal is gorgeous- and it is amazing how much the town welcomes F1. Streets are closed off everywhere for F1 events, every place has F1 themes, and everyone in a thousand mile radius comes by with their Ferrari, Lambo or whatever. Half the fun of the event is seeing the cars. I saw a McClaren F1 on the road, and an Enzo that weekend. It was ridiculous(ly awesome  )

All the videos got flagged- what doodoo....

if i can find a working copy, ill se if i can host it somewhere

I was watching the Canadian GrandPrix live on TV when Kubica crashed. And yes, he hit that wall REALLY hard.
I was finally relieved some time after to hear that he'd gotten away with only minor damage...
Thanks to modern technology (and a bit of luck)

I will see if I can hunt up another clip.  Figures that it got pulled...

BINGO

Theres more than one way to skin a cat 

They said on ESPN that he was going exactly 78.6 MPH when he hit the wall.  I'm just saying.   Hey, it probably looked faster in person. 

Quote from: Jake D on June 12, 2007, 09:46:51 AM
They said on ESPN that he was going exactly 78.6 MPH when he hit the wall.  I'm just saying.   Hey, it probably looked faster in person. 

Ywah, saw that too- I think they said about 200MPH referring to the straight. The way the track is laid out. he was coming down a pretty fast straight, and probably slowed down by the time he went off track and actually made wall impact

He crashed in the area marked "T2| 23.0" and wound up at the end of the hairpin.

Quote from: trumpetguy on June 11, 2007, 06:38:53 PM
I've been a F1 fan since the mid 80s.  One of my worst memories is seeing Ayrton Senna's fatal crash on TV in 1995

* 1994

Yeah, I saw the crash...pretty wild.

What was it, four times the safety car was on and one of the crashes took place whilst safety car was on. Something, probably the track, needs a good dose of looking at, and fixing.

That crash was potentially horrendous but on the wider issue the race was close to being ruined, fortunatly no-one was robbed by the timing of safety cars but it could have influenced the result and that ain't racing.

As things stand I'm amazed that f1 goes back there.

In that first (top) picture, are those his feet sticking out of the nose cone?  Seriously? 

Quote from: Cal Price on June 13, 2007, 06:52:11 AM
That crash was potentially horrendous but on the wider issue the race was close to being ruined, fortunatly no-one was robbed by the timing of safety cars but it could have influenced the result and that ain't racing.

That's debatable- I am a huge Takuma Sato fan, but the timing of the safety cars are what allowed him to come up 3 positions in the last 10 laps when he swapped out to the option tires. He passed Kimi, Alonso and Ralf all in the last few laps.

Quote from: Cal Price on June 13, 2007, 06:52:11 AM
As things stand I'm amazed that f1 goes back there.

From a fan perspective, the town is greatly accommodating, and the track is exciting to watch. There were some complaints of the paddock accommodations from some teams- I think primarily Renault.

Quote from: Jake D on June 13, 2007, 06:52:11 AM
In that first (top) picture, are those his feet sticking out of the nose cone?  Seriously?

Yup. A flippin miracle he survived. We all thought he was at least paralyzed if not dead.

This information was released today:

"Robert Kubica's spectacular Canadian Grand Prix crash has reached one of the biggest decelerations ever recorded by a modern Formula 1 car's data loggers.

BMW Sauber has disclosed information on the crash, from which the Pole emerged with just a sprained ankle and a mild concussion. Kubica's F1.07 hit the concrete barrier at the inside of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve's hairpin at 143mph, and the deceleration peaked at a staggering 75G, or a force equivalent to 75 times that of gravity."

I seriously doubt whether he hit at "only" 78 mph.  That might have been the speed at which an F1 car normally goes through that part of the track.  However, at the time of impact, Kubica was airborne from rolling over Trulli's tire, and did very little (if any) effective braking.  He was going FAST.  These cars can brake 100-0 in less than a second, so if he missed braking time, he was not going 78mph. 

The HANS device probably saved his neck from being broken.  Luck saved his feet.  How many of you remember Stan Fox's accident at the Indy 500 where his feet and legs were exposed at 200mph.  He was not as lucky as Kubica, although he did survive and raced again IIRC.  Here's a site with pics of his legs hanging out of his destroyed car in the air: http://www.strangedangers.com/content/item/5980.html