Massa crashes after being hit by heave spring

[xpensive]

Ignorant question here; Is it 100% confirmed what object hit Massa and from which car? Has here been an investigation on how that piece came adrift?

[WhiteBlue]

There is an interview with Ross Brawn regarding the first two questions. http://www.f1technical.net/news/12957

The FiA has announced a thorough investigation. http://www.f1technical.net/news/12979

[bhall]

I lost the whole central damper of the car. The car this morning had a lot of fuel and it felt quite good. This afternoon it felt a bit strange, vertically the car was moving a bit. And we suspected since the beginning of qualifying that it was starting to go. Eventually it went completely on that lap, because I had a lap of traffic which I had to abort and that lap, as soon as I braked for Turn 1, it was very, very bad. I still did an okay time through sector one, but when I went into Turn 3 I felt the rear collapse.

I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but, as is the norm around here these days, histrionics took over, and it went unnoticed. But if you want to start talking about making F1 safer to prevent these type of "freak" accidents from occurring, the best place to start, one would think, would be to simply not use parts that are known to be potentially unsafe.

It's unbelievable that Brawn would send a car out whose suspension was suspected to be on the brink of failure. I'm sure all of us could think of at least a half-dozen ways in which that spring's on-track failure could result in something tragic, even beyond what did occur.

In my opinion, Brawn was negligent and deserves some form of reprimand. I mean, if Renault gets hit with a one-race suspension for failing to properly secure Alonso's wheel, surely Brawn deserves the same, if not more, for failing to address a safety problem they seemed to know they had.

[modbaraban]

Let's then start with Ferrari and ban them for poisoning half of Malaysia with KERS acid.

Now that testing is banned all cars are potentially unsafe. Cost cutting has always been unsafe.

PS: broken suspension doesn't fall apart in most cases.

[mx_tifoso]

Ignorant question here; Is it 100% confirmed what object hit Massa and from which car? Has here been an investigation on how that piece came adrift?

Theres video showing the spring coming off of Barrichello's car, and putting all the footage together shows that Massa encountered that spring just a few seconds later.

[Ray]

I lost the whole central damper of the car. The car this morning had a lot of fuel and it felt quite good. This afternoon it felt a bit strange, vertically the car was moving a bit. And we suspected since the beginning of qualifying that it was starting to go. Eventually it went completely on that lap, because I had a lap of traffic which I had to abort and that lap, as soon as I braked for Turn 1, it was very, very bad. I still did an okay time through sector one, but when I went into Turn 3 I felt the rear collapse.

I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but, as is the norm around here these days, histrionics took over, and it went unnoticed. But if you want to start talking about making F1 safer to prevent these type of "freak" accidents from occurring, the best place to start, one would think, would be to simply not use parts that are known to be potentially unsafe.

It's unbelievable that Brawn would send a car out whose suspension was suspected to be on the brink of failure. I'm sure all of us could think of at least a half-dozen ways in which that spring's on-track failure could result in something tragic, even beyond what did occur.

In my opinion, Brawn was negligent and deserves some form of reprimand. I mean, if Renault gets hit with a one-race suspension for failing to properly secure Alonso's wheel, surely Brawn deserves the same, if not more, for failing to address a safety problem they seemed to know they had.

I've been saying this over and over and over again, and I've gotten told to basically shut up it was an accident. And Ill say this again, had the spring come off and killed Massa every single person here would agree with what I've said repeatedly.

[i70q7m7ghw]

PS: broken suspension doesn't fall apart in most cases.

Yup, historically I can't think of a time when a modern F1 suspension has had such a failure. Toyota had a rear suspension failure in Brazil one year if I remember correctly and the car simply hit the ground with sparks shooting out the back like someone had lit a firework. The suspension never fell apart.

I seriously seriously doubt Brawn knew the suspension would actually come apart, they may have known it was about to fail, but teams let damaged cars run all the time. The difference between Brawn and Renault is that it was clear Alonso's wheel was going to come off because it wasn't bolted on properly, yet the team did nothing to prevent it, when he radioed in to say he thought he had a puncture they still didn't tell him!!!

Are you guys ready to get off your high horses now?

[mx_tifoso]

What about Glocks suspension failure in Germany '08? His suspension completely failed leading to the corner exit crash into a wall. Could've been more serious, but it wasn't thank God.

Stuff like this shouldn't happen more often for us to see that something should be done whenever it does. Brawn knew the rear was amiss, but they kept it and qualified with it, that's a dodgy move on their part. And now Ross Brawn is playing it off as if nothing happened, WTF.

And no, I like my horse .

[bhall]

How is anyone on a high horse when pointing out a serious lapse in judgment by the Brawn team in sending Barrichello out on a faulty suspension? Not only did they endanger other drivers, as has been made painfully clear by what happened to Massa, but they put their own driver at grave risk.

Ayrton Senna died at Imola because his car bottomed out, causing him to lose grip and slam into the wall. Barrichello's car also bottomed out as a result of the failure of the heave spring on his car. It's only dumb luck that Barrichello wasn't seriously injured, or worse, because of it. I shutter to think what would have happened had the spring failed going into the much faster Turn 4 rather than Turn 3.

What we saw in Hungary wasn't a detrimental side-effect of cost-cutting measures or due to the ban on testing. What we saw was a team cutting corners. They sent Barrichello out on a lick and a prayer, hoping that the suspension would hold long enough for them to improve their qualifying position. And Felipe Massa paid the price for it.

[modbaraban]

had the spring come off and killed Massa every single person here would agree with what I've said repeatedly.

Speak for yourself. By the way, do you blame Clarke for killing Surtees?

[bhall]

had the spring come off and killed Massa every single person here would agree with what I've said repeatedly.

Speak for yourself. By the way, do you blame Clarke for killing Surtees?

I'll speak for Ray, a fellow South Carolinian.

You're comparing apples to hand grenades. Jack Clarke didn't go out on track with a wheel that was suspect. It was an accident that tore it off and sent it bouncing onto the track. Rubens Barrichello was sent out on track with faulty equipment. It was nothing other than normal race driving that caused its failure. Had that failure occurred out of the blue, with no warning, you could call it an accident. But it wasn't out of the blue. There was obviously warning as Brawn knew there was something wrong and did NOTHING to make it right. Instead, they kept on qualifying.

[tommylommykins]

hmmmm... IMO, the two situations of barrichello's spring and Alonso's wheel are quite different:

With barrichello, I would not have linked the occurrence of a slow suspension failure with the ejection of a spring: Ask yourself "What would you expect to happen if a car suspension failed?"...

With Alonso, the link between not securing the wheel, and the wheel dropping off is much closer, don't you think?

[i70q7m7ghw]

Rinse and repeat...

I seriously seriously doubt Brawn knew the suspension would actually come apart, they may have known it was about to fail, but teams let damaged cars run all the time. The difference between Brawn and Renault is that it was clear Alonso's wheel was going to come off because it wasn't bolted on properly, yet the team did nothing to prevent it, when he radioed in to say he thought he had a puncture they still didn't tell him!!!

Rinse and repeat...

Examples?

McLaren, Kimi Nurburgring 2005.

Probably an uncountable number of races where a driver has reported brake problems, steering problems etc. etc. and they've stayed out. Trulli drove his car until the brakes exploded on year at Canada.

These cars are racing cars, they designed to finish the race as fast as possible, and theres famous quote that goes something along the lines of "the perfect race car crosses the line and then falls to pieces", the motto being that the cars are designed on the bleeding edge of performance versus reliability. This is a sport and a highly competitive one at that.

[andartop]

By the way, do you blame Clarke for killing Surtees?

How about that: had it been Alonso's wheel that killed Surtees, would you consider blaming Alonso and Renault for a tragedy that could have been avoided?

[dave34m]

Deleted my comment, wrong forum