GeneRally International Forum

Doriano Romboni died as a result of a Simoncelli-ish accident during the Sic Supermoto Day. How macabre.

Andrea de Cesaris

#blacksaturdaysundayforF1

1972 GP Monaco winner Jean-Pierre Beltoise died today while a vacation in Africa.

Robert Manzon WAS the oldest F1 driver to live

marinator wrote:Robert Manzon WAS the oldest F1 driver to live

And the last living F1 driver, who also raced in 1950.

It's sad to see a champion perish.
In my opinion, it's even sadder to see a much-loved upstart die.

Goodbye, Jules.

Yes. This is as surprising as sad that hie died today.

It is very sad. It was only a few weeks ago they said his condition was improving slightly. Things must have gone downhill since then.

Goodbye Jules.

Jules has fought his hard. Although failed, may he rest in peace...

It is devastating to hear that Bianchi has passed away, and that after 20 years someone has died because of an incident of a Grand Prix. Salut et merci, Jules!

It was a sad way to wake up, reading the news about this, but it was to be expected. It's just sad to think that he could be racing that Ferrari this or next season, but instead we get the saddest news possible.

My dear letter to Jules

Also, two more fatalities, this time in a motorcycle race. My thoughts and prayers to their families...

RIP Guy Ligier (1930-2015)

As was discussed in the other thread, Justin Wilson had a crash which caused him a head injury. Unfortunately he passed away some hours ago.

Even though i wouldn't like the canopies, I'd rather have it than crashes like this. Always brings back memories of Henry Surtees..

Ugh. Not a good month for open-wheel racing...

These things happen. Jonas Hähle, a motorcyclist, was hit to head in a crash of four bikes during ADAC Junior Cup event at Oschersleben this weekend. He was just 15. RIP. How many of those "shocked" by Wilson's accident cares? RIP Justin Wilson, but any hysteria should be avoided. Motorsport is supposed to be deadly dangerous.

Well, like Bianchi's death I heared of Wilson's death after I woke up. And both accidents were very unlucky, and tragic. The only good thing about Wilson's accident is that he died shortly after and not left his family and friends in a months long martyrdom (like in Bianchi's case). We all know what happened with him.

And to Jonas Hähle, who died a few days ago in a motorcycle race in Oschersleben, he just died with 15 years. I don't know if he was a good driver or not, but I he could in a few years drive in the German motorcycle championship, at least. It's sad to know that a so young driver already died, but like TriggerHappy said ''Motorsport is supposed to be deadly dangerous.'' In the last months after safety years we had to learn it (again), especially in this year.

Probably nobody said about that, but...

Berto Camlek, 45-year old Slovenian motorcyclist, has died after crash during Alpe Adria Cup race on Hungaroring.

And at 4th August we said goodbye to Ryszard Mankiewicz (1937-2015), the only one Polish motorcyclist who started in Grand Prix motorcycle championship. In 1969 he finished the season in 125cc class on 7th place and in the last race he was 3rd.

What an unlucky time in motorsports :/

Trigger Happy wrote:These things happen. Jonas Hähle, a motorcyclist, was hit to head in a crash of four bikes during ADAC Junior Cup event at Oschersleben this weekend. He was just 15. RIP. How many of those "shocked" by Wilson's accident cares? RIP Justin Wilson, but any hysteria should be avoided. Motorsport is supposed to be deadly dangerous.

Well the difference is that while on the bike accidents there's not much to do. (Aside from maybe implementing a racing version of the helmet airbag system, would propably help with the smaller impacts, or some kind of a smarter HANS device to prevent neck injuries.) But with Wilson's crash, it would have been prevented. Now, if it's the issue of ironing out the other problems caused by the safety system, fine, keep it off until it's done. But it's not being used because "wahh we can't see the drivers", then that is not a good reason. It's like saying hockey goalies shouldn't have masks because we should be able to see their expressions during the match.

We've had a pretty many incidents with drivers getting hit in the head by flying debris (Surtees, Massa, Wilson of the top of my head) in a relatively short time period. We've also had many close calls. Just this weekend in GP2 a loose wheel ripped of another driver's front suspension. He was lucky he wasn't there half a second sooner or the wheel might have bounced from the nose to who knows where. His safety feature was luck. I'd rather have something a bit more reliable than that. We haven't even talked about vehicles getting pretty close to the head. And we haven't talked about the smaller series' that aren't televised, who knows what's happening there. Until someone dies from a head injury. Again.

Well, that's not entirely true about motorcycle, you can also build a roof, a full chassis etc for security reasons at least in prototypes classes like MotoGP, which don't need to remind production motorbike at all. It would appear like speed record motorbikes with no tail maybe?



But nobody even dares to raise that question regardless last fatalities in MotoGP basicaly were head injuries (Simoncelli, Kato), but they look for reasonable solutions (e.g. airbags, which you mention) consistent with the class of racing. Racing drivers had been hit into head many times during time - by own car part (Senna etc), by part of other car, by animal, by marshall, by an equipment (like fire extinguisher), ambulance/service car, by ground/wall - some drivers died, some not. It's not more nowdays than before, people are more hysteric due media, same with close calls.

Would you say let's build a roof after Senna's crash? Surtees and Massa (and not odly nothing more else) come into your mind, because all mainstream articles mention those two european accidents and they do that to link these 2 crash videos to catch more attention of common reader by more shocking stuff (more time on page, more clicks). But it doesn't make the problem occuring more often.

Trigger Happy wrote:Well, that's not entirely true about motorcycle, you can also build a roof, a full chassis etc for security reasons at least in prototypes classes like MotoGP, which don't need to remind production motorbike at all. It would appear like speed record motorbikes with no tail maybe?



But nobody even dares to raise that question regardless last fatalities in MotoGP basicaly were head injuries (Simoncelli, Kato), but they look for reasonable solutions (e.g. airbags, which you mention) consistent with the class of racing. Racing drivers had been hit into head many times during time - by own car part (Senna etc), by part of other car, by animal, by marshall, by an equipment (like fire extinguisher), ambulance/service car, by ground/wall - some drivers died, some not. It's not more nowdays than before, people are more hysteric due media, same with close calls.

Would you say let's build a roof after Senna's crash? Surtees and Massa (and not odly nothing more else) come into your mind, because all mainstream articles mention those two european accidents and they do that to link these 2 crash videos to catch more attention of common reader by more shocking stuff (more time on page, more clicks). But it doesn't make the problem occuring more often.

Maybe someone should dare raise that question about motorcycling safety then. I can't say much about that since I've stopped watching motorcycle/motocross racing partly because of the high risk of injuries. I'd go for a design like this with the bikes, if they did a full cover. I'd propably actually watch bike racing if they had covers like this:

There may not be more or less incidents than there have been before, but it's still not a reason to do nothing about it. And having a canopy or a rollcage like thing would be an obvious fix for an obvious problem, it's not even an overreaction, it's not an extreme move. Having a half a kilometer tarmac runoff is an overreaction, having a better head protection is one of the last flaws in the car safety.

Senna's impact was such a strong one that I'm not sure if any of the now proposed designs would have worked. Just like with Bianchi or Wheldon. Although with Senna, if they had raised the sidestructure around the head after Brundle being hit in the head in Brazil, it could have just enough to deflect the wheel at least. The other two objects made a penetrating impact, which would be harder to prevent. But if someone had suggested building a roof or a rollcage after that crash, we propably would have it now, just like we have the other safety changes because of the accident.

Trigger Happy wrote:Would you say let's build a roof after Senna's crash? Surtees and Massa (and not odly nothing more else) come into your mind, because all mainstream articles mention those two european accidents and they do that to link these 2 crash videos to catch more attention of common reader by more shocking stuff (more time on page, more clicks). But it doesn't make the problem occuring more often.

The only thing is if the roof/canopy/whatever it is were to be implemented in open wheel cars (Formula 1 particularly), how could the driver exit from a crash if the car is flipped? I have fears that there would be a case where the roof is stuck. If it's touring car or sports car it's still fine because even if they're flipped they still can exit from the doors.

Motorsport will always be dangerous, no matter what kind of safety-increasing peripherals are installed there...

http://index.hu/sport/motorsport/2015/1 ... nagyobbja/ - Today Hungary's first sports truck driver has passed away. János Krasznai, you shall not be forgotten.

It's a hard post to make, as it hits so close to home.





RIP Simon Lekias, gone far far too soon.