The Hamilton Accident

[waynes]

why on earth did the nose cone not shatter on impact? on the coverage here, when they brought the car back, even the lower element of the front wing was intact!!!

lucky boy is lewis, looked like he could have cleared the trye wall

[F1 Observer]

That reminded me of Ayrton Senna's fatal crash...And people at the time did speculate that a slow puncture could have the same effect on the car as it had on Lewis' : go straight ahead despite driver's efforts to correct the car's trajectory.

It didn't seem to me any misplaced wheel due to a faulty gun. It seemed to me that the tyre simply suffered a completely abnormal and sudden deflation.

We had this year two very serious crashes in ten rounds, first Kubica in Canada and now Lewis at the Nurburgring. Fortunately the drivers didn't sustain any injuries, but somethings have to be rethought.

[modbaraban]

It didn't seem to me any misplaced wheel due to a faulty gun. It seemed to me that the tyre simply suffered a completely abnormal and sudden deflation.

Can't agree. It was too obvious at once that the the tyre was in perfect condition when it got out of position, blocked and punctured only after that (most likely by some the suspension bones).

[vyselegend]

yes on the replays there was some smoke coming from the region of the upper suspention in the inside of the tyre. Definitly, something faulty did cut the tyre, it wasn't "normal" puncture.
Will Lewis race tomorrow?

[waynes]

hopefully lewis is ok to race, BUT Ron saying it was a wheel nut problem is absurd

lewis had done a full lap and was half way round his hot lap and had set a S1 best

i don't believe it, the cynic in me says the mclaren failed, hence why they were rushing around Alonso's car

[vyselegend]

There's no cynism in that waynes!
Obviously when one car fails, the other is suspected to share the same flaw, so it's only normal they were concerned by Alonso's car.
I hope Lewis will race. Anything that spoil the championship hunt is a shame.

[checkered]

It wasn't too big

of an accident ... compared to Kubica's. Lewis experienced about a third of that force, though that's "adequately" gut wrenching in itself, I'm sure. Ron seemed all but certain that Hammy is cleared to race (and has mechanics working an all nighter to preserve his grid position to prove it), but in the end it's up to Dr. Hartstein.

Not a simple task, to assemble a new car around a spare tub and the "old" engine. A technical delegate will have to be satisfied as to which parts are "damaged enough" to be replaced, and all the while the wrecked car is still sitting in parc ferme until the morning. This will demand a lot from the team, I hope their effort pays off.

If Lewis rises up to the podium after this, it'll surely be hailed as an epic achievement ... although less will do to impress me.

[Giblet]

A big rookie error was keeping his hands on the wheel until the bitter end.

He's lucky he didnt break his wrists.

[vyselegend]

It has just been announced on TV that Hamilton will race this afternoon! They say the news is official.

Good call!

[basrawi]

looking back to the footage I think he did nothing to cure the problem,,, not even locking the brakes or trying to steer away or letting go of the steering wheel @ impact,,

and what was the kicking for????? looool I imagined that he was crying

I think he needs to gain more experience and grow up

[Steve Wilson]

As soon as that tyre went Hamilton had no chance of changing the cars speed or direction as in a split second it was onto the gravel and braking wouldn't have worked anyway. There was no way he could've steered left as it was the outside tyre that went.

In some ways, Hamiltons accident seemed more serious than Kubicas, at least in Kubicas the car absorbed a lot of the energy and even though it was a much bigger crash the deceleration from Hamiltons accident may well have been more than with Kubicas.

[pRo]

BUT Ron saying it was a wheel nut problem is absurd

Why is that absurd? I'm sure he has better knowledge on the matter than all of us combined.

Do you know what happens, when a wheel isn't tight and the tolerances are next to nothing? Apply some force to it, like in a fast corner, when the wheel is on the outside and it just might move enough to touch something, which can cause plenty of this and that.

why they were rushing around Alonso's car

They said Alonsos car also had the same issue, but he got lucky and nothing happened.

[waynes]

Do you know what happens, when a wheel isn't tight and the tolerances are next to nothing? Apply some force to it, like in a fast corner, when the wheel is on the outside and it just might move enough to touch something, which can cause plenty of this and that

he'd done a lap and a half before the accident. i find it unreal that a wheel nut problem took that long to surface

[modbaraban]

http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/ ... 9/450.html

[DaveKillens]

After witnessing the second major accident of the season, I give profound thanks that the safety systems and construction did their job and allowed the driver to emerge relatively undamaged. I want to remind everyone that I'm an old fart, and can compare different situations and eras. Thirty, heck, ten years ago the drivers could have been killed by such accidents, and it's a good measure of the safety improvements implimented over the years. But we can never rest on past laurels, and safety can never be good enough.
It's ironic that the accident happened at the newly named Schumacher Esses.