F1 safety after Alonso's accident

[timbo]

So today we have reports that Alonso will miss out first GP (next week). It is a standard procedure to minimize risk of consecutive concussion which may cause serious brain damage.
We know that accident happened at relatively low speed (by F1 standards, of course had it been normal car it's quite heavy). It also looks that car damage was not significant.
By all accounts the accident did not look as heavy as for example Raikkonen's crash in Britain last year, yet Raikkonen was fit for next race.
What do you think caused this outcome? A concrete wall surely contributed, but is it possible that F1 cockpit protection is not as effective on the angle of Alonso's crash?
Could crash structures be modified to improve their performance for a wider angle? The relatively small damage to the car means there was less energy dissipation, can it be that suspension arms are too stiff and do not dissipate energy efficiently?

[Jolle]

I think the biggest problem with the aftermath of Alonso's accident, is that McLaren plays a tricky part in the communication. They still have no sponsor so they will never say the following things: We are worried that the Honda engine will break down the first couple of races or: Alonso had a blackout and has to have further medical investigations.
I don't buy the explanation that he was swept up by a gush of wind and knocked out by a blow to the wall that hardly blown the tires. McLaren themselves were pretty quick with the message: "the car is not damaged to much, we will try to run some more this afternoon". The information from McLaren is a bit too much "there is nothing wrong, etc etc", and with 3 days in hospital, missing the last test plus the first race... There is too much money at stake to have anything wrong with Alonso or the Honda engine.

[JimClarkFan]

To be completely honest I don't believe that much can be done, or that anything should really be done.

The impact was such that it didn't break either the front or rear axels, it seems as if the car slapped the wall at a perfect such an angle that it meant all of the force was transferred to the driver in the cock pit.

The obvious way to mitigate that is some kind of method to allow the wheels to crumble under heavy impact. But I think that if you tried to mitigate that you would create potentially bigger safety problems, such as axles that break with minimal contact, which could be ever more dangerous.

Edit - one thing that might be useful is what Grosjean said, get rid of the astro turf at the sides of the track.

[F1NAC]

similar crash happened in monaco in 2011, when petrov hit the barriers with his left front suspension and felt pain in legs. But he was fine after. This is one very strange crash. Hope he is okay [-o<

[wesley123]

Wasn't Alonso ill? I remember reading that part and I'm certain it played it's role in the incident.

I'm no medical professional but when you have a cold it's something especially noticable around the nose(and in more extreme cases across the whole face). My guess is that the aditional pressure of the cold just increases the risk of a concussion?

Add it all together and you got a situation where you need to properly recover from before you can consider competing again.

[poolboy67]

raikkonen's crash isn't relative here since the impact/damage was focused only on his body. remember him limping away from the car.

sideways impacts are not the same as front impacts, because the hans device stops the head from moving too far and he helmet won't hit anything at full force. whereas in a side impact the helmet will actually hit something. side impacts therefore are alot more prominent to causing head damage, such as in alonso's case.

it is absolutely the right thing to do, to keep alonso under observation because he did black out for a while, suggesting significant head trauma. kubica was kept under observation for 3-4 weeks IIRC after the montreal crash in 2007, yet he "only" suffered a concussion and a sprained ankle. and since mclaren are mostly not in good race shape in australia anyway, it's the right thing to give alonso all the time available to make sure he will be 100%.

it's normal that something like this gets downplayed by the PR people, to try to avoid panic in fans.

however i do think mclaren is hiding the real cause of the crash, which i feel may have been caused by a glitch in the ERS system suddently sending full power to the wheels, causing a snap. this happened to raikkonen in last year's test in bahrain, as well as in montreal during practice. why would they hide it, but ferrari didn't? -well because this one sent a driver to the hospital.

the impact could've been amplified by a sort of pendulum effect of first trying to counter the spin, then front wheels getting grip and the car snapping the other way right at the moment of impact. kind of like rosberg crashed at monaco after the tunnel.

[WaikeCU]

There's still a difference between sideways into:
A) Tyre wall
B) Barrier
C) Concrete wall

In Alonso's case, it was a concrete wall, which doesn't have anything that absorbs the energy. The outcome would have been entirely different with a tyre wall or a barrier. In my opinion, FIA should look into banning concrete walls around the track and replace it by SAFER barriers. It will be a lot 'safer'. (pun intended)

Rosberg had this back in 2008. He walked away without a scratch. This was with barriers.

[timbo]

sideways impacts are not the same as front impacts, because the hans device stops the head from moving too far and he helmet won't hit anything at full force. whereas in a side impact the helmet will actually hit something. side impacts therefore are alot more prominent to causing head damage, such as in alonso's case.

But can you remember last time something like that happened? Perez crash in Monaco was sideways, but it was much harder and it was actually perpendicular, whereas in Alonso's case the impact was still at an angle, lateral deceleration was only a fraction of total.
A good example from WaikeCU -- no injuries for Rosberg, with much heavier damage to the car and similar if not higher speed.

[poolboy67]

Rosberg had this back in 2008. He walked away without a scratch. This was with barriers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsIUU849WnU

i'd count the first impact as more a frontal impact. on the second the speed had decreased conciderably.

like i said, frontal impacts are lighter because the helmet isn't hitting anything without being slowed down or stopped by the hans device. i should also point out, that the hans device is "attached" to the human body, which is soft tissue. therefore it has give. soft materials slow down, hard materials stop movement.

dispite the cushioning on the sides of the cockpit, they're still kinda hard and there's not alot of cushioning material anyway. hit the helmet on that and you'll most likely atleast have a nice headache.

remember, concussions are caused by the brain getting bounced inside the skull, which cannot happen unless the head has hit something hard.

EDIT. or by massive g forces, but that's not the case in alonso's crash.

[timbo]

remember, concussions are caused by the brain getting bounced inside the skull, which cannot happen unless the head has hit something hard.

But the inside of cockpit has padding specifically for that and it is quite thick. Was it inadequate in a relatively mild impact?

[WaikeCU]

Rosberg had this back in 2008. He walked away without a scratch. This was with barriers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsIUU849WnU

i'd count the first impact as more a frontal impact. on the second the speed had decreased conciderably.

like i said, frontal impacts are lighter because the helmet isn't hitting anything without being slowed down or stopped by the hans device. i should also point out, that the hans device is "attached" to the human body, which is soft tissue. therefore it has give. soft materials slow down, hard materials stop movement.

dispite the cushioning on the sides of the cockpit, they're still kinda hard and there's not alot of cushioning material anyway. hit the helmet on that and you'll most likely atleast have a nice headache.

remember, concussions are caused by the brain getting bounced inside the skull, which cannot happen unless the head has hit something hard.

EDIT. or by massive g forces, but that's not the case in alonso's crash.

Yeah, that's maybe true. I think the initial impact has lowered the energy to an extent, which the 2nd impact might be less hard than expected. It probably looks hard on camera. I think if we need a better example, then we need to look at something different. The Wendlinger, Perez and Button's crash in Monaco which caused them to miss the race were due to a sideway impact at high speed. For Perez it might also be the sheer deceleration of the speed after the impact, which caused him to be stretchered off.

I think the Petrov one is a legit one to be similar, but I think this one from Glock might also be similar to the angle Alonso had crashed. You just have to reverse it a bit.

[poolboy67]

But the inside of cockpit has padding specifically for that and it is quite thick. Was it inadequate in a relatively mild impact?

i just said that padding (i wrote cushioning) isnt very soft partly because the outer layer is actually a thin layer of carbon fibre. secondly because, well the material itself isn't very soft. and there's not alot of that material there anyway.

Scarbs:
"This foam is relatively soft when touched, but when subject to a severe blow the foam hardens to absorb the load and is then slow to bounce back. This characteristic protects the driver from both the initial blow and any whiplash response."

but there's still only so much that about 7.5cm of material can do in an impact. the initial impact will be hard none the less.

[Facts Only]

I don't think anything can be done to mitigate freak accidents.

Personally I believe that the problem was that the impact was about as big as it could have been without breaking anything on the car. If he had been going faster or hit the wall at a bigger angle the suspension would have collapsed and the actual G-Forces would have been much lower.

Its like when you think you have reached the bottom of the stairs but there is one left and you "fall" just one step but it hurts like hell as you don't break the fall and all the energy goes into one leg, whereas if you slip down a few steps its not so bad because you break your fall with all of you limbs.

(I don't fall down the stairs that often but I liked the analogy)

[tomazy]

I dont buy that the car hit the wall at the perfect angle so that the suspension didn' break. Suspension is not designed for the force to be in that direction (I think?). if the acceloration was 30g, that means that the suspension was loaded with force equal of at least 21tons of weight (min weight 701kg*30g), no suspension would survive that (at least I think not?). What is the point of having a side impact structure, if the suspension doesn't give? This is realy strange.

This is just me thinking out laud, it could all be compleatly wrong.

[poolboy67]

I dont buy that the car hit the wall at the perfect angle so that the suspension didn' break. Suspension is not designed for the force to be in that direction (I think?). if the acceloration was 30g, that means that the suspension was loaded with force equal of at least 21tons of weight (min weight 701kg*30g), no suspension would survive that (at least I think not?). What is the point of having a side impact structure, if the suspension doesn't give? This is realy strange.

unless the impact was perpendicular to the suspension arms. kinda like hammering a stick into the ground. the stick won't snap. but if you hit the stick on it's side, it will snap. dynamic strength i believe is the word? (not an engineerrr)

honestly i think we should believe the fact that alonso was indeed concussed. because he really is getting the textbook post concussion treatment.

what we should debate is what caused the crash in the first place, which i think mclaren is (rather poorly) trying to cover up. i very much think the crash was caused by a malfunction in the car, which the FIA cannot prove from telemetry alone (since they've basicly ruled this a freak accident) and mclaren are most likely trying to cover their asses. possibly in hopes of not looking bad to potential sponsors. imagine how detrimental it would be to mclaren's reputation, to top off their poor testing success with a crash that was caused by a malfunction, and sent their driver to the hospital, with an injury that's seriousness the media has rather bloated as usual.