Felipe Massa survives horrific crash in Hungarian Grand Prix
The weekend gone by marked a rare occasion when I actually missed out on watching Formula One raceday (the Hungarian Grand Prix). However, the qualifying session on Saturday more than made up in terms of being eventful.
During the final qualifying round, Massa was negotiating Turn Three of the Hungaroring circuit when all of a sudden his car seemed to veer off the track and smashed into the tyre wall, with Massa slumped over the wheel.
Replays showed in chilling detail exactly what happened. A few seconds before Massa passed that way, a spring came off Barrichello’s car and bounced on the track, hitting Massa’s helmet with a violent force. You can imagine the impact of something like this at over 150 mph. He lost conciousness and had his feet on the brakes as well as the gas pedal, careening off the track, leaving ugly tyre marks all over as he hit the barrier.
Luckily, even though it seemed a mild concussion, he was alive, though it was later revealed how badly the accident had impacted him. He suffered a fractured skull and almost lost vision in his left eye.
Credit must be given to the safety measures in place and particularly the quality of the helmet he was wearing.
Introduced around 4-5 years ago, these carbon-fibre Schuberth helmets are extremely tough and are designed to withstand extreme stress, upto 1.5 tons. The material is similar to those used in making parts in commercial planes and fighter aircraft.
The helmet is made of 18 layers of the Japanese T1000 type of carbon fibre. The T1000 is used only in those places where the stresses are at their peak.
Olivier Schimpf, F1 Project Director at Schuberth summed it up succintly when he said, “If such an accident had occurred five years ago, Massa would have been dead.”
Sombre enough !!
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