Alonso's Crash

[cossie]

If he had a seizure due to the concussion, that worries me. I know of american football players having a seizure disorder after they had concussions

[Richard]

Wording and context perhaps?

That's my take on it. They're using the word "loss" in the context of catastrophic loss or failure. They're saying the car was intact and all systems working up to the point of impact.

I guess they'll be examining if the car is particularly sensitive to unbalancing gusty winds, or if it was simply a freak of testing in blustery winter conditions.

[motobaleno]

guys I don't like conspiracy theory but every further hour alonso remains in the hospital contributes to make things obscure...and from the protective shield that people like briatore made up, it seems to me more likely a problem by fernando more than by the car

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHxeaTLi-2Y
just to have some benchmark

[ecapox]

Per Omnicourse.it: he's still having severe headaches, his neck is jacked up, and so is his back. Might be a while....

[Thefuelman]

I'm have half. Mind we my see K-Mag in the car come Melbourne. I'm still not buying the Mclaren version of events at all though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igIvPDDy ... ata_player

[Manoah2u]

So seems like a unlucky gathering of unpleasent circumstances.

The tire mark isn't that weird either, it's not uncommon that just 1 wheel locks up under braking; it was an 'inside' wheel lockup, gravity affects F1 cars too thus turning to the right generates more load on the outer wheels compared to the inner wheels.

Gravity? Do you want to rethink that?

no, i don't need to rethink that, perhaps you should think a bit more. Ever heard of gravitational effects? Ah yes, when a car turns suddenly to the right, the springs on the inner suspension arms stretch and the springs on the outer suspension arms compress. Why? because gravitational forces are applied to them due to the energy the object is carrying. That is gravity.

So you can just take those twisting eyes away and apply them to yourself and go realise what you just did.

Yes but then the reverse argument is also true, that the other wheels should have had grip. With an inner wheel lockup only, you still have full directional control over the car as well as most of the braking ability avalable. Then the trajectory of the crash (curving inward) as well as the speed at impact are puzzling.

No not true at all. Once you loose grip on one tyre, the second, third and forth can very quickly follow as they take on more load which quickly becomes too much. Thinking that a driver can have "full directional control over the car as well as most of the braking ability" when the wheels are locked is very puzzling indeed.

All of the drivers have been complained about the cold temperatures and the harder tyres this year. Most likely the tyres were outside of their operating temperature. When he touched the astro turf it pitched the car towards the wall and broke traction on all four wheels, at which point he's going straight to the scene of the accident.

It had nothing to do with the tyres. The tyres are special winter compounds. Alonso had a moment of oversteer which saw the car get angled into a different line than that which was preffered or intended. At the very same moment a gush of wind picked up the car and thus gave an even bigger impact to the directional change, paired with alonso probably hitting the accelerator pedal at the very same moment causing the vehicle to 'shoot' into the wall instead of into the track.

And as it seems stuff needs to be chewed out completely before it can be digested for some [ well, some seem to just seek a possibility to invent useless arguments just to have say in something ], indeed, the other wheels did have grip and it doesnt change or matter a single thing. There was 1 tyre mark, caused by 1 wheel, the front right, that was lifted just slightly and lost grip, causing the brakes to block the wheel thus 'scratch' the surface. the other wheels did not lose grip and thus did not cause tyre marks. That does not alter the fact the wind caused the car to blow into the concrete wall.
Grip is not of interest.

You can go straight ahead on a straight freeway lane and get a huge gush of wind from the left side - in extreme, you get blown to the lane to your right. did you lose grip? not a single moment. the wind however gave enough pressure to the car's side that the car was essentially 'pushed' to the side.

[Tim.Wright]

So seems like a unlucky gathering of unpleasent circumstances.

The tire mark isn't that weird either, it's not uncommon that just 1 wheel locks up under braking; it was an 'inside' wheel lockup, gravity affects F1 cars too thus turning to the right generates more load on the outer wheels compared to the inner wheels.

Gravity? Do you want to rethink that?

no, i don't need to rethink that, perhaps you should think a bit more. Ever heard of gravitational effects? Ah yes, when a car turns suddenly to the right, the springs on the inner suspension arms stretch and the springs on the outer suspension arms compress. Why? because gravitational forces are applied to them due to the energy the object is carrying. That is gravity.

So you can just take those twisting eyes away and apply them to yourself and go realise what you just did.

That's nothing to do with gravity. Lateral load transfer is a force/moment equilibrium effect.

[SectorOne]

Well that takes the prize this week, can´t wait to see what´s coming in next week´s episode of F1Technical.

[Manoah2u]

Gary Anderson has made the point which I raised yesterday. They claim the wind caused the accident but also claimed no change in aero pressure. Obviously both can't be true.

Another thing to bear in mind is that the wind can only pitch a car off the track if it occurs when the car is very close to the grip limit...

wrong + wrong.

Mclaren said there was no sudden loss of aerodynamic pressure. This is true because there never was a loss of aerodynamic pressure; again, there was a 'overdose' of aerodynamic side pressure.

If you drive a car at 100 kph at the freeway, and a big gush of wind comes from the side, you don't lose a single bit of aerodynamic pressure; all that happens is there is more pressure added to the side of the car and guess what, the side of the car also has a shape thus the 'aerodynamics' of that have an effect on the vehicle too; laws of phyisics. they're really simple.

Wind can not 'only' pitch a car off track when the car is close to the grip limit. grip is of zero importance in this case.
the pressure of side wind can cause a car to get pitched to a different direction; it does not influence the car's grip, it only influences the car's aerodynamics. More pressure from the side means more counter-energy is required to keep the car in a straight line. this does not require more grip, at all. It requires either 2 things; energy or directional correction.

If Alonso was driving 250 kph instead of 150 kph, and not have oversteering thus not having the car directed in a different direction than the 'ideal line', the car would have carried more energy in the corner; if it carries enough energy, the wind would have less effect on the car's direction due to wind pressure. It would get 'countered' by the energy carried by the speed. Instead, the car was doing 100 kph slower, which obviously means less energy carried into the corner, thus letting the wind have a bigger effect.

[Richard]

I suspect something lost in translation. Manoah2u is talking about forces due to mass under acceleration (aka momentum) in contrast to aero forces. Swap the word "momentum" for "gravity" and the paragraph makes sense.

I agree with Tim that the car is likely to have been on the limit if a gust of wind was able to cause it to leave the track.

[Moose]

Gary Anderson has made the point which I raised yesterday. They claim the wind caused the accident but also claimed no change in aero pressure. Obviously both can't be true.

Another thing to bear in mind is that the wind can only pitch a car off the track if it occurs when the car is very close to the grip limit...

wrong + wrong.

Mclaren said there was no sudden loss of aerodynamic pressure. This is true because there never was a loss of aerodynamic pressure; again, there was a 'overdose' of aerodynamic side pressure.

If you drive a car at 100 kph at the freeway, and a big gush of wind comes from the side, you don't lose a single bit of aerodynamic pressure; all that happens is there is more pressure added to the side of the car and guess what, the side of the car also has a shape thus the 'aerodynamics' of that have an effect on the vehicle too; laws of phyisics. they're really simple.

No one said the wind came from the side. If the wind comes from the back, then the airspeed of the car drops suddenly and the amount of downforce drops suddenly. That will cause a minor oversteer moment into a huge snap and put you in a wall.

Wind can not 'only' pitch a car off track when the car is close to the grip limit.

Wrong. As shown above, a large gust of wind can make a car running at 90mph suddenly lose more than half its downforce, and hence close to half its grip. That causing the car to snap does not require you to be close to the grip limit at all. In fact, you can be way over the limit, and still end up way under the limit when you suddenly lose half the grip available to you.

Basically, you're operating on the flawed assumption that the wind came from the side, not from behind.

[Manoah2u]

guys I don't like conspiracy theory but every further hour alonso remains in the hospital contributes to make things obscure...and from the protective shield that people like briatore made up, it seems to me more likely a problem by fernando more than by the car

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHxeaTLi-2Y
just to have some benchmark

ah yes, every minute more in the hospital surely means he's at the edge of mortal danger. surely every second longer in hospital is evidence mclaren is covering things up and lying around. they surely must have found a big problem, and trying to keep it secret, all the evidence of alonso forgetting his accident surely means he was electrocuted whilst the mclaren had a suspension failure also had a brake failure and because all of this honda's big man has gotten the boot and it's all a big conspiracy.

everybody's in on it. better get that tinfoil hat before they take over our minds, too.

[Manoah2u]

Gary Anderson has made the point which I raised yesterday. They claim the wind caused the accident but also claimed no change in aero pressure. Obviously both can't be true.

Another thing to bear in mind is that the wind can only pitch a car off the track if it occurs when the car is very close to the grip limit...

wrong + wrong.

Mclaren said there was no sudden loss of aerodynamic pressure. This is true because there never was a loss of aerodynamic pressure; again, there was a 'overdose' of aerodynamic side pressure.

If you drive a car at 100 kph at the freeway, and a big gush of wind comes from the side, you don't lose a single bit of aerodynamic pressure; all that happens is there is more pressure added to the side of the car and guess what, the side of the car also has a shape thus the 'aerodynamics' of that have an effect on the vehicle too; laws of phyisics. they're really simple.

No one said the wind came from the side. If the wind comes from the back, then the airspeed of the car drops suddenly and the amount of downforce drops suddenly. That will cause a minor oversteer moment into a huge snap and put you in a wall.

no one said it didn't either. you fail to understand that wind plays a big role in vehicle direction. a big gush of wind does in no way cause downforce to drop at all. downforce remains the same, the car still 'slices' through the same air. however, a gush of wind causes additional pressure on the vehicle, which WILL have effect.

Wind can not 'only' pitch a car off track when the car is close to the grip limit.

Wrong. As shown above, a large gust of wind can make a car running at 90mph suddenly lose more than half its downforce, and hence close to half its grip. That causing the car to snap does not require you to be close to the grip limit at all. In fact, you can be way over the limit, and still end up way under the limit when you suddenly lose half the grip available to you.

Basically, you're operating on the flawed assumption that the wind came from the side, not from behind.

which flawed assumption? there is zero information on wind direction. I used side wind to show how much wind effects the vehicle.

a car running at 90mph does not lose any downforce at all thanks to a wind, thus loses no grip either.

Mclaren stated there was no sudden loss of aerodynamic pressure. That's all the info you need.

[acosmichippo]

a big gush of wind does in no way cause downforce to drop at all. downforce remains the same, the car still 'slices' through the same air. however, a gush of wind causes additional pressure on the vehicle, which WILL have effect.

It all depends on the direction relative to the car. If it is a tailwind, it absolutely will reduce downforce. Headwind will increase downforce. You say, "a gush of wind causes additional pressure on the vehicle," well, downforce/lift is caused by a difference in pressure.

Mclaren stated there was no sudden loss of aerodynamic pressure. That's all the info you need.

The argument is that mclaren meant that there was no sudden loss or aerodynamic pressure *due to a mechanical failure*, which is implied by the context of the statement. It is a bit ambiguous.

[mikeerfol]

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alons ... hird-night

"Alonso to stay in hospital a third night"