04/24/24
July 20, 2009
Henry Surtees killed in F2 race.: Henry was the son of former Formula One champion John Surtees. While racing at Brands Hatch he was struck in the head by a wheel from someone else's cars which knocked him unconscious, and his car carried straight on at the next corner. Video.
posted by Drood to auto racing at 05:28 AM - 8 comments
That is tragic. Assuming he was killed by the flying tire hitting him on the head, I have a question. Do/could F1 (and similar) cars have any protection for that type of thing? I know they craft the "cockpit" in such a way that the drivers are protected (at least in part) if, for example, the car flips over. Is there any protection from a "direct hit" of this type? Is this just such a freak occurrence that any type of change to the design of the body is not warranted?
posted by holden at 11:00 AM on July 20, 2009
F1 made a change to their regulations about 11 years ago to require that the wheel is tethered to the chassis. It's not perfect - a very high energy crash like Kubica's in Montreal in '07 will defeat the measure - but it helps to lessen the chance that a mundane accident for one driver will turn into a deadly one for another, a Marshall or a fan.
posted by Mr Bismarck at 12:08 PM on July 20, 2009
It is easy to see how this is a fatal accident. A dropping a tire on your head from the height in the video is likely to break your neck. A tire hitting your head at 100+ MPH is certain to kill you. Combine that with the sudden deceleration of hitting the barrier straight on without braking and it seems almost impossible to survive.
One thing that is clearly evident from recent crash deaths in motorsports, like the one that killed Dale Earnhardt for example, is that the severity of the injury is not related to the spectacular visual nature of the accident. It is a result of the energy absorbed by the driver. Cars that roll, flip, and spin are dissapating energy as they decelerate, it's those sudden stops that are deadly. When I watched this video I am struck by the freakish and tragic nature of this accident. Wrong place at precisely the wrong time and only 18 years old. It's sad as he did nothing to contribute to this accident in the way of driving mistakes. Just bad luck.
posted by Atheist at 12:53 PM on July 20, 2009
From what I've been reading folk who watch F2 say, the wheel tethers have been failing a LOT this year in the series.
I wonder how the driver whose car it came from feels?
Jonathan Palmer, who owns the circuit, his son was in front of Henry in the race. It's just a freak incident. A few tenths slower or faster and it would have been fine.
I immediately thought of this incident.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgW4u_wGBiQ
If you watch closely, the wheel actually hits Brundle in the head. (He had a tyre mark on his helmet afterwards.)
I'm a racing nut. I adore racing. Stuff like this makes me very sad. They can do all they want for safety, and people are already crying for better safety etc... Yet there is nothing you can do to protect against absolutely freak accidents like this. The irony is that some people will say about firmer attachments for the wheels, which takes us BACK to cars that don't fall apart on impact putting the driver at bigger risk.
Incidentally there was also a rally co-driver killed this past weekend too.:(
posted by Drood at 02:13 PM on July 20, 2009
Do/could F1 (and similar) cars have any protection for that type of thing? I know they craft the "cockpit" in such a way that the drivers are protected (at least in part) if, for example, the car flips over. Is there any protection from a "direct hit" of this type?
I'm not familiar with Formula 2, but I think F1 drivers are now so low in the cars that they can't really be protected much more without enclosing the cockpit. The HANS device is designed to reduce the kind of injury that killed Earnhardt, but there's not much that can be done about an impact from the front.
...the severity of the injury is not related to the spectacular visual nature of the accident. It is a result of the energy absorbed by the driver.
Correct. If you can stomach it, take a second look at the video. The tire is barely moving until it hits Surtees, then rockets off to the right. The weight of the tire combined with his speed means there was terrible impact energy.
posted by dusted at 02:31 PM on July 20, 2009
dusted, you're totally correct in that the energy of that impact was too much for Surtees to survive. The tire ricochets off his helmet traveling far faster than what it was prior, and it travels quite a distance in the air. Given the weight of a tire/wheel on these cars and it's easy to imagine how that much of an impact would be too much for a person's neck to handle.
Almost every sport carries some risk of injury/death, and I doubt you can make racing much safer without making races too boring watch.
posted by dviking at 04:47 PM on July 20, 2009
And in a weird mirroring, Ruben's Barrichello just lost a spring out of the back of his car in Qualifying for Hungary, which then struck Felipe Massa in the helmet, clearly knocking him out and causing him to drive straight on into a tyre wall.
Fortunately, Massa appeared to regain consciousness enough to hit the brakes and, apparently, waved at the crowd when he was being stretchered into an ambulance.
He's now being airlifted to hospital.
posted by Mr Bismarck at 09:12 AM on July 25, 2009
Didn't include the following link in the main page for what will probably be obvious reasons. It's a YouTube video of the accident. Just to clarify, THIS IS FOOTAGE OF THE ACCIDENT.
Ordinarily I wouldn't post anything so ghoulish, but this is one of those baffling "How on Earth was that fatal?" accidents that has claimed a driver, in an era where we can see massive accidents like Robert Kubica at Montreal where the driver walks away practically unscathed.
Once again, this is footage of Surtees' accident from the Eurosport broadcast. There is nothing graphic about it. Just a sense of sadness and bafflement more than anything. :( One can only assume it was the blow to the head which killed him. :(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTDiYS1NVW4