Maria de Villotta injured in testing

[thearmofbarlow]

Letting someone drive an F1-car for publicity reasons, possibly endangering other people's lifes, that is idiocy. What I and others said is what most insiders thought beforehand but what you (hopelessly) politically correct emo's apparently don't dare to say.

Here's a good comparison. In 2010 she finished the Superleague Formula season 17th in points, right behind Narain Karthikeyan.

You gonna talk --- if Karthikeyan crashes the car? DO you talk --- on the multiple occasions Karthikeyan crashes himself out of a race with nobody in sight?

No.

Because he has a dick.

I'm about the least politically correct --- here, trust me. Were it not for the fact that the Maldonado thread basically put me on really thin ice around here already, I'd more than like to have a go at your braindead point of view on a more in-depth level but hey... even I have to reign it in sometimes.

[Raptor22]

lookslike no yong driver should be allowed near an F1 car for teh Yong drivers tests either.

Senna shoul nver have been given that williams to Test.
Prost shold nvere have been given that McLaren.
Oh Dear what about Hakkinen .........and Schumacher.. How would they have got an F1 drive if theyhad to have their superlicense to drive an F1 car away from an F1 event.

there is nothing in her past to suggest that she was or is incompetent to drive an F1 car. the los of her eye may just make her incompetent in future but at the time of the accident, this as not in question because she had the required training and experience to drive and operate the car.

thats logic, not bunny hugging PC talk you m$r$n. going to get a mail from Richard again soon...

[mr moda]

Sigh. For a forum that in general has a reputation for having smart and informed members this thread is certainly worthy of any gutter tabloid. She was obviously capable of driving a car ( open wheeler or otherwise ) in competition with varying results. Not DNF everytime she gridded up. Yes a media dream for marussia. Blonde, attractive, female. Why not. All teams use their drivers for media and exploit there qualities whether it be looks, age, skin colour etc. Give it a rest and wait for the team amd FIA to release a preliminary finding before you go --- canning her.

[aral]

I am glad to see that I am not alone in seeing how disgusting and sexist that this thread has become. So many experts who claim to "know" what happened, who is at "fault" etc.

And very little sympathy or concern shown towards Maria, her family and the team.

The mods really need to do something.

Maria, wishing you a speedy recovery.

[grano123]

I would lost all continence. It' just amazing to think that her head was what that stopped the car.

It's going to be difficult seeing her with an eye patch, I hope the eyelids are not too damaged so that she can at least were a glass eye. I think they should keep her on as the third driver even giving her a race or two. I think drivng the F1 car with one eye should be that much different. Coming from work I closed one eye to see how much vision I lost. I could still see my mirrors. Only extreme periphery was lost. Maybe she won't be able to drive a Monaco, but a Silverstone or a Spa should be doable.

With the kindest of respect, she didn't qualify for a super licence through lack of experience before the accident, why would anyone even begin to think she will qualify for one now is beyond me?

[thearmofbarlow]

With the kindest of respect, she didn't qualify for a super licence through lack of experience before the accident, why would anyone even begin to think she will qualify for one now is beyond me?

Find me a professional race driver that hasn't had an accident.

[PlatinumZealot]

She's driven the car before so why is her competency in question?

Because idiocy is unbounded.

Letting someone drive an F1-car for publicity reasons, possibly endangering other people's lifes, that is idiocy. What I and others said is what most insiders thought beforehand but what you (hopelessly) politically correct emo's apparently don't dare to say.

She drove 100's if not 1000 of Km in F1 cars before. F1 cars are dangerous, but you still have to question the layout in the area. If you look at the Lotus (Caterham) test at Duxford the layout is very different. Not 100% cotton ball safe because there was only metal guard rails separating the crowd from the pit area, but at least for the driver it is much better than having a truck parked near one of the turns.

[meves]

What would be more beneficial is if young driver tests or testing in general only happened at authorised venues. Even if they had to use drag strips instead of makeshift facilities at airstrips this sort of thing may be avoided.

There is the possibility that this occurred due to driver error but sex has nothing to do with this. It could equally have been a quirk in the anti-stall or the flyby wire throttle we don't know yet. We're all human, we all make mistakes. Sadly this ended tragically, I just hope she recovers enough to lead a close to normal life.

[Pup]

Sadly, her driving career is over. Stereopsis, or depth perception, requires binocular vision.

Likely, but not necessarily so. We've had major league baseball players with one eye, and I doubt there's a sport where a lack of binocular vision would hurt you more. The brain will compensate to a large degree. Enough for F1? Who knows, but I don't know what her career path was to begin with. It could well be that for what she had planned for her future, the loss of an eye won't hurt her as badly as one might imagine.

....

[aral]

She drove 100's if not 1000 of Km in F1 cars before. F1 cars are dangerous, but you still have to question the layout in the area. If you look at the Lotus (Caterham) test at Duxford the layout is very different. Not 100% cotton ball safe because there was only metal guard rails separating the crowd from the pit area, but at least for the driver it is much better than having a truck parked near one of the turns.

Marias total experience in an F1 car (not that it is relevant) is 300kms in a Renault, and ONE straight line run on the day of the accident. And as for the layout of the area, this has been laid out like this before, and there was no reason to query it.

This was an unfortunate and unforseeable accident, and could have happened to any driver at any test.

[Websta]

Stereopsis is only one issue that restricts monocular people from racing - loss of vision in one eye results in a peripheral field deficit on that side. Combined with the lack of depth perception and the high speeds of elite racing series, these drivers would pose a serious risk to themselves and other drivers.

[Pup]

Like I say, it's a disability - but you can't say with certainty that it will be career ending. I don't mean to offer false hope, but I think it's equally premature to write her off from the sport at this point.

As a somewhat related aside, I can tell you that I see better when driving with one eye than two, due to a muscular problem in my eyes that surgery hasn't been able to correct, and so I wear an eyepatch whenever I drive. Yet I would pass any eye exam they gave me using both eyes, simply because it's not something they'd detect if not testing for it specifically. In fact even though I've had this problem since birth, I didn't even know I had a problem until adulthood when my brain decided to call it quits on compensating for it. The point being that an alignment problem isn't that uncommon of an issue to one degree or another, and so it wouldn't surprise me at all if there aren't professional drivers out there who suffer from the same thing, at least in lower formulae, and who probably don't even know it. The problem is that it can actually be worse than having only one eye, because your brain is receiving conflicting info from each eye and has to choose which to believe. But that's probably getting too far off the subject - I just want to emphasize that eye problems in and of themselves aren't as important as how well the individuals brain is able to compensate, and that's why I'm hesitant to call this a career-ending injury for her.

[siskue2005]

Sadly, her driving career is over. Stereopsis, or depth perception, requires binocular vision.

Likely, but not necessarily so. We've had major league baseball players with one eye, and I doubt there's a sport where a lack of binocular vision would hurt you more. The brain will compensate to a large degree. Enough for F1? Who knows, but I don't know what her career path was to begin with. It could well be that for what she had planned for her future, the loss of an eye won't hurt her as badly as one might imagine.

....

baseball players dont run at 300kph

[Pup]

No, but they have to hit a 150+ kph 3" curve ball dead center or they have no career.

[grano123]

With the kindest of respect, she didn't qualify for a super licence through lack of experience before the accident, why would anyone even begin to think she will qualify for one now is beyond me?

Find me a professional race driver that hasn't had an accident.

I think you missed the point regards the accident.

The absolute bottom line, again with nothing personal against her or being female, but *IF* her prior experience and results merited having a super licence, she would be eligible. She isn't.

The point I was making about the comment that Marussia should now *give her* a couple of F1 race starts as I suppose compensation for the accident, is a ludicrous suggestion in my opinion!