Dreadful news

[pete g]

that's not good

[Barry Ashcroft]

Bit of a worry that Tel. Hopefully the post before still had waved yellows.

But surely the green flag means all clear from this point onwards.

Either way theres questions to answer.

[alexander72]

i have always worried about going upside down in my car and mounting the armco - it would be curtains i reckon.... 

[Cleggy the Spyder Man]

all you can say is thank god he didn't also collect a marshal or two or three

 

fingers crossed for Jules

[alexander72]

what Lord Cleggy said 

[Captain Colonial]

Wow, lifted up the back of the digger completely from the ground and dropped Sutil's car off the front. If he hadn't hit the digger, would he have shot straight through the gap in the wall into something else?  I think he would have been badly hurt in either case at that speed, and if he had shot between the axles of the digger...  As Cleggy says, a miracle he didn't collect any marshals, but that's cold and very little consolation to say the least.

 

Apparently there's in car footage as well that the FIA has and which I really hope never gets made public.

 

Fingers crossed for him, I thought Kubica would never drive anything again after his horror crash, but happily he still can and does.

[SteveD]

not nice to see at all , lets all hope he pulls through

[mikef]

How awful.  Our thoughts are with him and his family.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman)]

Dear God, that's terrifying the way it knocks the crane to one side.

 

I dearly hope the flag thing is just a trick of perspective, but that gives me an equally bad feeling.

[s2rrr]

That is truly shocking, hope he pulls through.

 

Bob

[alexander72]

its incredible when you consider he has hit the counterweight - the heaviest part of the crane - perhaps 3-4 tonnes on its own....fingers crossed for him>

[greenandmean]

Green flag means the course is clear from that point on, and overtaking is allowed once past that point not as soon as you see the flag, seeing as the flag point was downstream from the car that was correct.

I realise yellow also means slow down but WHO DOES and by how much if they do.

In years gone by the sequence used to be stationary yellow, waded yellow at the scene, stationary yellow then green, but the powers that be decided that closed down too much of the track and dropped the second stationary yellow.

Big problem with snatch vehicles though, surprised one has not been hit before, no excuse with all the money in F1 for cranes not being behind the barriers (although in this instance Jules was heading for the gap in the barriers, which should have been picked up on the track inspection and should not have been open in the direct line of fire) but is becoming more popular in lower levels of motorsport partly because of a lack of marshals. Most marshals I know are nearly all the wrong side of 60 and very few younger people are coming into the sport to replace them.

Get well soon Jules.

[Northwarks]

... yeah nasty accident, I think it's time there was a special design/standard for recovery tugs/lifters, they seem to be trackside more and more with waved yellows, needs a crash structure to at least 'work' with current F1 cars, exposed counter weights and the ability to actually go under the centre is not expectable. What I wouldn't like to see is safety cars for every 'off', I just think we need to manage the deployment and the design ... or even remove all tugs and replace with cranes.

 

I'm not an engineer but I think the fact it lifted the digger and spun it it did absorb some of the impact, rather than hitting an object that didn't move. 

[jeff oakley]

I think that the footage shows what forces were involved. I suspect the fact the digger had Sutils car suspended helped as the weight hanging off the front meant the moment the front of Jules car hit the rear of the digger it was easier to tip it over. If that was not hanging of the front there would be no way that the car would have lifted that rear up and he would be dead.

Clearly this was a terrible one off but realistically anything that comes out onto the track is not ideal. This track has history of being one that holds a lot of water so questions will be asked, but Massa said it was too dangerous, Hamilton and Rosberg were happy to go on so opinions will as always be divided. 

[Rory's Dad]

I'm not an engineer but I think the fact it lifted the digger and spun it it did absorb some of the impact, rather than hitting an object that didn't move. 

 

I agree.  With the other car being lifted, most of the weight would have been on the front axle, not the back.  That would have made the lift of the vehicle not need as much energy as you might expect.  However the inertia of the digger would have been considerable to make it lift and rotate as much as it did.

 

I hope the poor guy recovers.