Hamilton - Verstappen Crash Frame by Frame Analysis

[Shrieker]

Source video



First of all, you can do this yourself on the source video by pausing it and using the period key (forward 1 frame), and the semicolon key (backward 1 frame) on the keyboard.

I have arbitrarily chosen the starting point as the 50 meter board. There are a total of 47 individual frames in the gif, starting at the 50 meter board, and ending with the first frame of contact. Since the source is 50 fps (and it does look like true 50 fps, when counted from the end of one second to the beginning of the next), 47 frames work out to .94 of a second approximately.

Before the point at which the gif starts, basically Hamilton feigns an outside move, and then fully commits to the inside, with going very close to the wall to avoid contact with Ver at all costs, presumably because they rubbed wheels on the previous straight, and Ham wanted to make extra sure there was no contact. Then, he goes towards Ver to open up Copse a bit, but does leave more than fair and safe space.

The main take away from this for me, is the fact that after starting to turn into Copse, the gap between Hamilton's front right tire, and the inside white line, keeps getting smaller and smaller, until the last few frames before contact, where it stays constant. Ham makes extra sure of staying clear of Ver; there is more space to be used between him and Ver to open up Copse before turn in, but he doesn't do that, imo because again, he tries to stay well clear of Ver to avoid contact.

Now contrast that with Ver. The gap between his car, and Hamilton is getting smaller and smaller; coupled with the fact that Hamilton is already getting closer to the inside white line, that means only one thing: Ver is giving less and less space to Ham.

Imo, driving wise this is clear cut almost all on Ver. The only thing Ham can be blamed for is the fact that the rules state it's the overtaking driver's responsibility to make a clean pass. Ham just put his car in between the apex and Ver. There isn't even a hint of understeer judging by the gap from the line to the tire. And you wouldn't expect understeer at that point yet, they haven't even gone 1/4 of the way through the corner.

I hope this puts to bed the story that Ham understeered into Ver, or the way worse one, that Ham tried to take him out deliberately. Imo, if contact hadn't happened, we would've seen Ham go onto the kerb or at least catch the inside white line eventually. Contact wouldn't have happened if Ver hadn't turned in aggressively, probably expecting Ham to back off a bit.

[Hoffman900]

I think it would be useful to show how much time this all took in real time. This is all split second stuff.

[nevill3]

Thanks for this slow motion, when you add the composite image uploaded by RZS10 ( added below) we have a clearer view of the incident. However seeing it at full speed live also makes you realize that analysing things in slow motion after the fact does not compare to the split microsecond decisions that have to be made by the drivers.

IMO the main cause of the accident this time was the decision by both drivers not to yield and as has been quoted many times over the years,

I am here, it is now up to you if we have a collision

Tried to put together a composite image but i'm not really happy with it because i struggled to account for the camera pitch etc, what i mean by that is that i couldn't line it up perfectly using various objects from the seperate images as guidance ... anyways ... it's not completely off:

https://i.imgur.com/oQossKS.png
here's an imgur album with a few more with lines and the full corner (probably not all that precise), the full lines are based on their right wheels, the broken lines are just guesses.
https://imgur.com/a/NInVRVY

[Shrieker]

I think it would be useful to show how much time this all took in real time. This is all split second stuff.

Yes, I intended to put how long that gif is in real time, but I got lazy towards the end

Well, let me see. The source video is 50 fps, so 47 frames in total works out to around .94 of a second.

[Leon]

I have been following F1 since the late 80s and have seen hundreds of such incidents. it's just a racing event.
look here

[ab_f1]

Source video
I hope this puts to bed the story that Ham understeered into Ver, or the way worse one, that Ham tried to take him out deliberately.

I was there on that corner. Between them appearing on the corner and stones hitting us because of Max's crash, was just about blink of an eye.
To consider this anything other than accident would be overestimating human abilities massively

[Manoah2u]

I agree to the bigger picture most people make that this is a racing incident. Otmar also claimed such during the race. Things are blown hugely out of proportions, especially by the tabloids and fanbois, who aren't actual fans but only look for sensation. I laughed hard at a co-worker who was upset with Hamilton and asked why do you even bother, you act like it was done to you - and i got the reply: i'm a max fan, so yes he did it to me!. people really need to grow up.

As for the incident itself, yes, it was a racing incident and i was a bit surprised that lewis got a penalty but then on the other side they didnt have much choice after how they handed out penalties recently, similar to how the incident between russell and sainz also was not worthy of a penalty.

The only reason horner was screaming about was because it would favour his teams WCC standings if hamilton got punished harder and because Perez was far out of any points.
It was pretty lame imho for RBR to get Perez on fresh tires just to 'steal' a WDC point from Hamilton for the fastest lap. I think that the rule should be changed not just in that only top 10 drivers get to have a point for the fastest lap, and that outside-top 10 fastest laps don't count in 'stealing' a point. in other words, the driver with the fastest lap time during the race in the top 10 gets a WDC point, regardless whether another driver from p11 to p20 has a faster lap.

Also let's face it, how would people be acting if it was Max who clipped Lewis. From all drivers, Max has been the most agressive so they really should stop acting like he's a saint and lewis the devil.

It was a super exciting start of the race, too bad it ended like this.

Also, the severity of the crash was not neccesarily due to Hamilton hitting max - what was far, far more disturbing was not even that the suspension broke, but how the tire after such a 'minor' hit completely went off and as such took a huge chunk out of Max' ability to slow down the car.

Anyway - back to the incident itself - I personally really wonder whether Max was aware of where Hamilton was untill the last moment. Lewis came up on the left rear of Max, which lead Max surely to think he was going for the outside, and as such, Max mentally committed to slightly more of the inside of the corner to leave him space but also make sure he won't make the overtake. However, Lewis lightning-speed fast went to the inside (the right), creeping into the tiny space available. I reckon that Max could have thought Lewis already bailed out and was behind him, and then focused on the corner - only to then discover Hamilton was up in his inside, then to decide to not want to be pushed too far off track and force Lewis a bit more inside - only to misjudge the amount of space between them with such high speeds and to be hit wheel to wheel, with a highly unfortunate outcome.

Let's face it though - the contact really wasn't THAT hard, the corner and circumstances however saw the suspension fail and worse - the tire coming off.
I would dare say that if the suspension had NOT broken - after all, it did not with Sainz in the sprintrace - then Max would have veered off track but i would believe that it's not at all unlikely that he could have slowed down enough and controlled the car enough not to fly into the barriers like that and as such, recover, continue from the back of the field - perhaps take a pitstop for fresh tires - and then get back in the hunt. I think Lewis still would have gotten his penalty, but it would have been less sour for RBR and Max as i would be inclined to believe that Max would have finished somewhere in the top10.

People also over-react because Hamilton ended up winning, and being happy about it. The truth is, the only reason Hamilton won was because technical issues plagued LeClerc's Ferrari. Had LeClerc's Ferrari not been running into issues, then he would have been too far in front for Lewis to be able to make P1.

For me - it was a racing incident and the expectable result from seeing nobody yield corner after corner boxing with the gloves off, and it should not be seen as anything more than that.
It brings the championship closer together and for the next race Max is going to be even more agressive so this will be very interesting to see.

[henry]

Excellent pair of visualations. In my mind the key questions are would Verstappen’s trajectory have left at least 2M of track at the apex for Hamilton to use and could Hamilton have hit the apex and used that 2M. If the answers are yes - no, the fault is Hamilton’s, if no-yes, it’s Verstappen’s, if no-no it’s a racing incident.

[Juzh]

Thanks for this slow motion, when you add the composite image uploaded by RZS10 ( added below) we have a clearer view of the incident. However seeing it at full speed live also makes you realize that analysing things in slow motion after the fact does not compare to the split microsecond decisions that have to be made by the drivers.

IMO the main cause of the accident this time was the decision by both drivers not to yield and as has been quoted many times over the years,

I am here, it is now up to you if we have a collision

Tried to put together a composite image but i'm not really happy with it because i struggled to account for the camera pitch etc, what i mean by that is that i couldn't line it up perfectly using various objects from the seperate images as guidance ... anyways ... it's not completely off:

https://i.imgur.com/oQossKS.png
here's an imgur album with a few more with lines and the full corner (probably not all that precise), the full lines are based on their right wheels, the broken lines are just guesses.
https://imgur.com/a/NInVRVY

And here is his comparison with Leclerc:

Composite for Lewis/Charles:



Full Album https://imgur.com/a/vN9HY56

I really tried my best to combine both composite images but neither filling in a few key frames nor using the finished image gave any result worth posting since the difference in camera (heli?) position is just too big - one would have to lay a grid onto the track from various known points in both images and then stretch/warp one image so the grid would fit that of the other but that's beyond my capabilities i think. For the composite i just distorted the image preserving the relative positions of objects to each other, most importantly the cars on track.

Hamilton is clearly completely on kerb and slows down much more in this case in order to make that apex. In Verstappen's case his trajectory would never enable him to reach that same line. He's there to make a statement and just goes in too hot for given conditions and plows into verstappen's right rear.

[Just_a_fan]

Hamilton is clearly completely on kerb and slows down much more in this case in order to make that apex. In Verstappen's case his trajectory would never enable him to reach that same line. He's there to make a statement and just goes in too hot for given conditions and plows into verstappen's right rear.

Verstappen makes no attempt to give room to a car on the inside and turns in expecting the other car to avoid him. He's making a statement and drives in to Hamilton.

See how easy it is to make extreme views from either side.

It was a racing incident. No one deliberately tried to have an accident. Both wanted the corner. Both tried to take the corner. These situations usually end up with one or both cars losing out and where one loses out, it's usually the one on the outside for obvious reasons and as we saw on Sunday.

[CMSMJ1]

Hamilton is clearly completely on kerb and slows down much more in this case in order to make that apex. In Verstappen's case his trajectory would never enable him to reach that same line. He's there to make a statement and just goes in too hot for given conditions and plows into verstappen's right rear.

Verstappen makes no attempt to give room to a car on the inside and turns in expecting the other car to avoid him. He's making a statement and drives in to Hamilton.

See how easy it is to make extreme views from either side.

It was a racing incident. No one deliberately tried to have an accident. Both wanted the corner. Both tried to take the corner. These situations usually end up with one or both cars losing out and where one loses out, it's usually the one on the outside for obvious reasons and as we saw on Sunday.

^ The bold bit. You have it spot on mate.

Partisan efforts and the strict black/white on these things don't do us any favours. It is OK for a 'side' to be wrong. Motor racing is difficult isn't it? We all know this. That's why we watch it, or participate in our own way.

The globe is lacking respect at the moment - we all surely see it - so let's realise we are all on the same side/team here. We love to watch motor racing. We evangelise about it - it is bloody brilliant. Let's not --- in our own shoes and be difficult with one another.

I enjoyed that race. I'm glad that Max is OK and that Lewis then demonstrated extreme talent and skil in recovering to win that race. I'm so bloody impartial that I'd be just as happy with the situation if it were reversed..though I was hoping for Charles to pull it out of the bag so very unexpectedly.

Be cool my friends

[El Scorchio]

Neither wanted a collision- Hamilton less so as he can't afford to throw away any points at this stage. He was very close to being at the back of the pack after this and his race being ruined too. Any notion he did it intentionally is completely absurd. NO DRIVER WANTS TO HURT ANOTHER ONE.

This is really a game of brinkmanship or 'chicken'. Neither wanted to back down. There was more room on the inside, there was more room on the outside. Neither driver showed a great desire to avoid contact. Hamilton has backed out of a lot of similar situations already this season and yielded to Verstappen.
Actually it's a fairly regulation front corner rear corner type of contact. You see it all the time in racing. It's just unfortunate/noteable that the aftermath was quite unusual spectacular.

No issue at all with the penalty for Hamilton for this, although talk of a black flag or race ban or similar for this incident is complete lunacy. There's so much hyperbole being thrown around purely because of the two drivers involved.

[SiLo]

It was a racing incident. No one deliberately tried to have an accident. Both wanted the corner. Both tried to take the corner. These situations usually end up with one or both cars losing out and where one loses out, it's usually the one on the outside for obvious reasons and as we saw on Sunday.

This thread can be closed now. We honestly don't need more discussion on it!

[TimW]

@Shrieker, look at the little black dot above the nose of Hamilton's car, gives a good indication of his trajectory and whether or not he is understeering.

[PlatinumZealot]

I have been following F1 since the late 80s and have seen hundreds of such incidents. it's just a racing event.
look here

In the first turn upon watching the situations are reversed. Max should have yielded then if we go by some persons arguments? Ham was ahead and if he recognized a crash if he had chopped in towards the Apex so he pulled right and stayed right to survive.

When it was Max's turn they were no such considerations. I give you enough room to brake, and for me to take the corner. When i turn in you better disappear!

What I see here is two different mentalities.