Massa crashes after being hit by heave spring

[sunny1304]

i got from here : http://www.f1technical.net/news/12956

may b i have missed something.

anyway, Massa is ok....thata a very good news.

[bjpower]

as it would rip the drive train if not the car apart.

It is quite obvious that you have no clue about the technical stuff.

Maybe there is some electronically system to prevent the situation of max. engine power and brake power at the same time but mechanically it is no problem to do this, apart from some wear.
But for sure the drivetrain and the car will not explode when doing so.
The graph shows 100% when it is touched it does not show how much it is touched.


By the way the HANS system is located much lower in the cockpit so it can’t got hit by the spring.

the hans system is on the drivers shoulders, maybe im wrong, but how far away is massas head from his shoulders!

a couple of hundred HP and the wheels having the brakes on would not rip it appart ?

go test drive a 318 and try it. put the hand brake on and gun the engine see how far down the road you get.

and then try thinking about a car with about 7 times the power and god only knows how much more powerful the brakes are.
and then remember the gear box will only last 4 races unlike the road car.

I cant imagine the f1 car is designed for loads like that

[myurr]

according to Ferrari Massa is fighting for life .....according to FIA he is stable.

they have startrf fighting even in this situation....... [-X

What on earth are you talking about?
The Ferrari press spokesman just declared live on the bbc that Felipe is okay, he had a second CT scan which was okay, that he was awake earlier and now is asleep..

Further there is an article on this very site explaining that Ferrari are angry about the false reports of Massa fighting for his life.

[zgred]

Brawn spring.

[Flummo]

the hans system is on the drivers shoulders, maybe im wrong, but how far away is massas head from his shoulders!

a couple of hundred HP and the wheels having the brakes on would not rip it appart ?

go test drive a 318 and try it. put the hand brake on and gun the engine see how far down the road you get.

and then try thinking about a car with about 7 times the power and god only knows how much more powerful the brakes are.
and then remember the gear box will only last 4 races unlike the road car.

I cant imagine the f1 car is designed for loads like that

The brakes get maximum load when the driver steps on the brake during "normal driving", the stopping distance is shorter than accellerating distance to the same speed = the brakes are quite able to handle bigger forces than the engines power.
As for gearbox etc. it does not care if it is accellerating the car freely or also has to deal with brake drag, the engine has the same amount of Hp and Nm so the load on the drivetrain is basically the same. Brake drag, aerodynamic drag, all the same as the engine sees it...

[bjpower]

but if the brakes are more powerful than the engine would that not cause major issues if both are applied?

[Flummo]

The car will stop eventually, apart from that there are no problems. Worst case scenario probably would be if the brakes would overheat due to the additional load, but that seems unlikely at least in short term.

[bjpower]

i cant imagine the drive train putting up with that abuse, but if im wrong so be it

[Conceptual]

For all of the wonderful minds that usually inhabit this forum, this post seems to have scrambled most of them.

I have seriously all but lost interest in F1, hence my greatly reduced presence here, and I must say that the trash that is in this post only helps me out the door a bit faster.

Life has risk. Life driving a racecar has even more risk. Any talk of closed cockpits or any other rediculous things like the "Quick Save" mechanism from the 2008 movie Speed Racer as being a MUST for future cars is retarded.

I am very glad to see Felipe is doing OK, but I think that he would shudder at the suggestions his injury has brought into the conversation. I'm almost surprised that no-one has said about changing the drivers position to a "jockey" position to put him up and under a windscreen.

Then it wouldn't be F1 anymore, and everyone could go find a life somewhere else...

[Ray]

It is amazing how much bullshit is written in this threat.

Massa got hit by a mass of around 1kg with a speed of approximated 255km/h.
That is a massive impact on a helmet and that is the reason for his injuries.
From this moment on he was obviously out of consciousness but slightly on the brakes
and never on full throttle.

If the brakes where full operated, the tires would have had enough grip to slow the car down.
Saying the car had no grip is nonsense because the tires would have looked then.

Nevertheless the car slowed down a bit.
The impact on the tire walls wasn't that hard, because they are really soft.
They take the energy over a relatively far distance.
Just have a look on the nose of the car. It is not damaged that much.
So it could protect the driver from a heavier impact like the one from Kubica.

I don't know how the HANS worked but so does none of us.
I am sure it is state of the art and absolutely safe.
This means that it was not damaged or something like this.
Maybe it can't do his job 100% when the driver is out of consciousness.
For one thing I am sure HANS should not hold the drivers head 100% rigid on the place, because this would be really bad.
The head still needs some movement to reduce the G loads on the head.
Inside the head is the brain bedded in liquid.
With a to stiff HANS the brain will hit the skull really hard and that effects sever brain injuries.
So don't blame the HANS or the belts.

I rather wonder how a spring can come loose of the car.
I really want to see how the spring arrangement of the brawns is done because naturally are the springs placed around the dampers and are really bedded in the car.

It's amazing just how much bullshit is in this one post. Maybe you should go back and read it again and see all that is wrong with it?

[Ray]

I don't think there's a safety issue with the helmets. They are amazingly strong...

The helmet failed, the spring hit him in the head. They are obvisously not designed for that kind of impact. How can you say there is no safety issue with the helmets?

That video is wrong too, the spring hit the car first twice. In front of the cockpit and then into the lateral head protection then his helmet. See formula1.com You can see the mark the spring leaves on the cockpit edge in the video

Tim

Well Tim, if the helmets aren't designed for that kind of impact, and it held up to that impact AND a big hit when he hit the tire wall and it didn't fail there either, I'd say there isn't a problem with the helmets. It had to major impacts and one it was never designed for and yet it never had it's integrity comprimised. Where do you see a problem?

[allan]

take a look at any of the onboard videos on youtube. the graphics show that massa was fully on both throttle and the brakes, and thats why the car didn't slow down. Now i don't know how f1 cars brakes work (whether they can be applied partially or in an "all or none" manner), but i know that with such a massive impact to the frontal lobe, a seizure and involuntary muscle contractions are expected consequences, which would explain why his feet were stepping on both pedals, and why the engine was revving once the car stopped. Same applies to Henry S earlier this week.

[jonathan189]

For all of the wonderful minds that usually inhabit this forum, this post seems to have scrambled most of them.

I have seriously all but lost interest in F1, hence my greatly reduced presence here, and I must say that the trash that is in this post only helps me out the door a bit faster.

Life has risk. Life driving a racecar has even more risk. Any talk of closed cockpits or any other rediculous things like the "Quick Save" mechanism from the 2008 movie Speed Racer as being a MUST for future cars is retarded.

When did you lose interest -- when they introduced seatbelts?

You enjoy your TT racing or whatever it is you watch now -- meanwhile I'll be hoping no F1 drivers die unnecessarily because possible safety measures have not been considered for fear of diluting the "essence of F1". The drivers are the essence of F1, and I prefer them alive.

[tommylommykins]

By the way, what exactly is a 'heave' spring? Does anyone know?

I did a Google search, and already half of the first page is returning results about Massa's crash

[andartop]

... but i know that with such a massive impact to the frontal lobe, a seizure and involuntary muscle contractions are expected consequences, which would explain why his feet were stepping on both pedals, and why the engine was revving once the car stopped. Same applies to Henry S earlier this week.

A small percentage of people with severe head injuries and brain damage may develop post-traumatic seizures, but no brain damage has been reported yet in Massa's case. According to wiki, only in 1 out of 70 cases of concussion convulsions (clonic movements) may occur, in which case the muscles relax and contract rapidly and repeatedly , in which case you 'd get his legs pushing and releasing the pedals alternately.
You could have them stepping on both pedals if you had a tonic seizure, where the muscles contract and either pull the extremities towards the body or away from it. I would have expected to see his hands do the same and not just the legs, which they didn't, so I am not of the opinion that happened.