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After that, some years ago, a brazilian driver died at this turn after hitting the wall and rebound to the middle of the track just to be T-boned by another driver
Brazilian drivers are saying that this turn is taken in highspeed and it dosen't have a run-off area so when there is a crash the car is tossed back in the middle of the track!
What you guys think about this turn and the crashes caused by its radical design? Do you think FIA and F1 should look into that?
"Racing, competing, it's in my blood. It's part of me, it's part of my life; I have been doing it all my life and it stands out above everything else." - Ayrton Senna
"Racing, competing, it's in my blood. It's part of me, it's part of my life; I have been doing it all my life and it stands out above everything else." - Ayrton Senna
That crash by Alonso was the moment I first started to really dislike him as a driver...
I can see why there are complaints but I hope they don't reprofile that corner. It is one of the most iconic on that circuit even if it poses no challenge to an F1 car.
I think this is the corner that makes Interlagos so special.
I really like this corner. It poses no problem for a formula 1 car because of the amount of down force that is generated. This corner is one of the gems in the Formula 1 calendar
I seriously wonder if the the drivers failed to notice the yellow flags. we can clearly see Fisci and Alonso coming onto the straight at very high speeds.
Regarding the corner, we can see Webbers car bouncing off the tire wall on the right side and it gets dragged a good 100m before it finally comes to a halt. The corners make the circuits special like Eau Rouge at Spa, but extra space and a gravel trap need to be in place, otherwise its looking like Tamburello pt 2.
Iconic or not, high speed corners are venomous in F1. Any failure of any aerodynamic thingie and you're toasted.
Curves like this one are specially dangerous, as they practically guarantee you a full lateral crash and, while F1 cars are notoriously resistant to frontal crashes, cars and human beings are not that good for lateral impacts (just compare the thickness of your parietal or lateral bone in your skull with the thickness of frontal skull bone).
Before you tell me that wings never fail, let me explain they disintegrate easily with a light touch of another car wheel, ehem. I won't say a word about the dangerous cocktail I see when mixing flexible wings that are more prone to failure with these curves.
From the point of view of racing this curves might seem enchanting for some fans, but they add nothing to racing, as they are taken flat out, and the visibility problems they bring plus the unnecessary risk they pose have made them, I think, totally obsolete among circuit designers that, like me, talk with drivers before drawing nice but useless curves for the benefit of the gallery.
The new panel plus the gravel trap seem a good solution on paper. I would like to see the same simulation made with two cars banging. I bet they won't move over the narrow gravel corridor in the same way, not to mention that the simulation doesn't include the shower of debris you will get on the track, shower that almost killed Alonso and any other driver that probably will puncture a tyre with the fiberglass shards thrown in a 300 kph curve.
Actually, Alonso crash is one of the reasons why the wires that keep the wheels joined to the car in case of accident were improved this year.
Circuit owners and designers know very well that these curves force you to put the stands (which are the true problem in this curve, I would raze them NOW) miles away from the track, if you do a proper analysis of lateral motion, as any decent designer must do.
I know some people won't get this but, hey, if you wish I can send you the math. It's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of "free fall" trajectories. What I mean by free fall is a trajectory where you suppose the car has no grip. What you do is to build an envelope of the possible motions assuming the car is moving without steering or brakes.
This is what gives you the location of stands. Do it otherwise, based on aesthetic considerations and you are creating engineering barbarisms, like this one. Thanks, Alex, let's hope you can contribute a bit to educate this forum or at least to instill some doubts in people that don't see the problem here.
If you are going to crash against a barrier, at least do it outside the track, in the name of Pete!
Actually, this is the moment I start to dislike naiveté (just a joke). I guess some people like billiard (this is the way these curves treat cars: like billiard balls, crisscrossing the track) more than bowling (which is the way a decent racing curve treats a car: like a bowling ball against pins).
I agree with our friend, n_anirudh. Many short concrete walls are also invisible... I remember with horror the walls at Giles Villeneuve circuit (Ile de la Cité) in Canada. Nobody notices them until a car disintegrates.
I say: why in heaven would you desing more Tamburellos in the country of Senna? Even a guy like him barely braked 100 kph his car in the few meters (meters! not ten of meters!) you have before feeling the pain. My "karting ribs" hurt already just imagining how it would be to crash at a mere 80 kph against a thing like this one.
Do you know the worst part? When you crash in light curves like this one, you do it invariably because of the error of a rookie, that touches you from behind, or because of a mechanical failure. It is never your own fault!
I hope Sperafico's death is not useless. He was a very good driver, like everybody in his family.
After ranting at full speed, I cannot fail to say that I consider this circuit among the top five in the world. Brazilians know racing.
Raymondu, in the graph this is called Subida dos Boxes (Pit Climb).
Last edited by Ciro Pabón on 04 Apr 2011, 11:35, edited 1 time in total.
n_anirudh wrote:I seriously wonder if the the drivers failed to notice the yellow flags. we can clearly see Fisci and Alonso coming onto the straight at very high speeds.
Regarding the corner, we can see Webbers car bouncing off the tire wall on the right side and it gets dragged a good 100m before it finally comes to a halt. The corners make the circuits special like Eau Rouge at Spa, but extra space and a gravel trap need to be in place, otherwise its looking like Tamburello pt 2.
At the risk of going off topic...
After the event Alonso admitted to seeing the waved yellow flags but wanted to gain an advantage over his competitors so did not lift - that meant he was going too fast to react to the debris. That was the revelation that made me dislike his racing ethics, as waved yellows mean marshals on track. Indeed if you watch closely you can see that one marshal has to step back off the track to avoid being hit.
Back on topic...
Whilst a corner like that can be taken at full speed in a modern F1 car it is the sight of the cars doing exactly that which reminds us how amazing those cars are and how big the balls of the F1 drivers are. Eau Rouge is also taken flat in a modern F1 car and is just as dangerous, yet is widely recognised as one of the most important corners in F1. I would no more wish to see Eau Rouge neutered or replaced than any other 'dangerous' high speed corner.
Senna's death was truly tragic and we must take steps top make sure that there is a very very low possibility of a repeat. But motor racing will never be 100% safe, and I doubt that Senna or any other F1 drive who lost their life to the sport would wish to see F1 stripped of it's thrills and challenges in the name of safety.
Edit: I would also add that Senna's death was not actually caused by the impact itself but by the way in which that car broke. According to Sid Watkins there wasn't a bruise on his body and he would have walked out the car had it not been for the suspension piercing his crash helmet.
Last edited by myurr on 04 Apr 2011, 11:42, edited 1 time in total.
Thanks for the insight Ciro. What circuits on the calender (or off the calender which could be on the calender) do you find ideal and best in terms of safety and being conducive to good racing, and what are some general principles of curve design which work to that end?
n_anirudh wrote:I seriously wonder if the the drivers failed to notice the yellow flags. we can clearly see Fisci and Alonso coming onto the straight at very high speeds.
Regarding the corner, we can see Webbers car bouncing off the tire wall on the right side and it gets dragged a good 100m before it finally comes to a halt. The corners make the circuits special like Eau Rouge at Spa, but extra space and a gravel trap need to be in place, otherwise its looking like Tamburello pt 2.
At the risk of going off topic...
After the event Alonso admitted to seeing the waved yellow flags but wanted to gain an advantage over his competitors so did not lift - that meant he was going too fast to react to the debris. That was the revelation that made me dislike his racing ethics, as waved yellows mean marshals on track. Indeed if you watch closely you can see that one marshal has to step back off the track to avoid being hit.
Back on topic...
Whilst a corner like that can be taken at full speed in a modern F1 car it is the sight of the cars doing exactly that which reminds us how amazing those cars are and how big the balls of the F1 drivers are. Eau Rouge is also taken flat in a modern F1 car and is just as dangerous, yet is widely recognised as one of the most important corners in F1. I would no more wish to see Eau Rouge neutered or replaced than any other 'dangerous' high speed corner.
Senna's death was truly tragic and we must take steps top make sure that there is a very very low possibility of a repeat. But motor racing will never be 100% safe, and I doubt that Senna or any other F1 drive who lost their life to the sport would wish to see F1 stripped of it's thrills and challenges in the name of safety.
Edit: I would also add that Senna's death was not actually caused by the impact itself but by the way in which that car broke. According to Sid Watkins there wasn't a bruise on his body and he would have walked out the car had it not been for the suspension piercing his crash helmet.
+1 from me
I really don't want to see tracks toned down but i'd rather them put a run-off area on the outside of a corner like this than do what they done with the Tamburello curve.
I agree that F1 needs some kind of calculatd risks but would not cost that much to build a ran-off area at this turn because the stands in this part of the circuit are elevated form the ground with an empity space under. My only doubt is that this is very close to the tunnel taht goes under the circuit into the inside.
I believe there are somethings that need to be done and I agree with Ciro, despite Senna desgin Interlagos this turn needs to be changed, if not for F1 sakes it needs change because people are dieing in track days (motorbkes and cars) and other brazilian motorsports events. Lets not forget that Interlagos is one of the two main racetracks in Brazil so every single day there is motor racing of some kind going on.
Just for information the latest developmento of the crash sunday is that the right-rear tire was placed facing the wrong way and due to the rain the drains on the tire tread were help the car to lose control. That together with the high-speed and the concrete wall tossing the car bakc in the track caused the massive pilled-up and the t-bone impact. The driver was using HANS but it wasn´t enough.
See the tire (rear-right):
Pic. of the damaged car after the safety team took the driver out.
Sondermann was racing in the brazilian "montana championship" equivalent to the Truck Series in nascar,
R.I.P. Sondermann the 2 motor racing official event fatality in the same turn " do cafe" in 3 years.
"Racing, competing, it's in my blood. It's part of me, it's part of my life; I have been doing it all my life and it stands out above everything else." - Ayrton Senna
