German Grand Prix 2013 (Nürburgring)

[Emmcee 0]

I think making the pit boxes bigger and placing a net around each pit box to stop this happening again, has to big enough through to allow the driver to turn in. I also agree with bringing back refuelling, it adds another strategic aspect to the race and IMO is no more if a risk than a firey kers failure.

[KoolMonkey 0]

Who said this btw?

Not sure where I found that mate. It's got to be a few years old though, as I had to cross out the part about him being married to his model wifey.

Great comeback from Lotus, but I fear they lost the victory by taking Kimi in way too early for his first pit stop. He was ahead Grosjean then, driving similar lap times, but by pitting so early, fell 10 seconds behind him. The safety car obviously erased all that, but the position was lost and, with it, most likely the crucial two seconds.

Yeah they did bring Kimi in too early. I don't want to criticize Lotus, but I will say I am unhappy with his last pit stop too. I think it would have been worth the risk to leave him out. 10 laps on medium tyres, he could have done it with a 15 second lead, but then again he has been in that kind of situation before and bleeds places. It happened in Silverstone so they were probably trying to avoid that too.

There was a moment 1-2 laps before Kimi's final pit stop when he had a 16 odd second lead. Had they pitted then, he would have come out ahead of the Mercs. Could have been a whole different ball game then.

I see an emerging pattern here. It's either holding off Alonso for the win, or Kimi hounding Vettel trying to get the win.

I still can't shake the feeling I've had for the past 2 years now that Lotus still are not adept at race strategy. It's ok to get things wrong, but the troubling part, is it seems they don't seem to be learning or getting much better. It's easy to talk about what they could or should have done in the 3rd pit stop, but Ikyrotz bringing up the 1st pit stop is very valid. We saw how long Grosjean went on his 1st stop, and we know how good Kimi is with his tyres, so he could have gone another 8-10 laps I think.

I don't think Lotus will ever get that much better on strategy. I wish that was the case as they seem to be racking up quite a few 2nd places that had real chances of being 1st places if they had been more on it so to speak with race strategy.

[Angellica 0]

Thanks to the good old BBC I only got the race on delayed highlights Means I have to stay away from anything that might give me the result and trust me, that isn't easy.

So the cameraman ended up with a broken shoulder and cracked ribs. That is serious enough but it could have been worse if the car was going faster, or if the tyre had bounced that bit higher and connected with his head. It was awful. He was so focused on doing his job he just never saw it coming did he?

As for Bianchi's car, I assume he leapt out of it so fast thanks to that fire he might have forgotten the equivalent of putting the hand brake on, do F1 cars have something like that? Hmm not sure. It was a heart stopping moment when it meandered across the track like that, the fact there were no cars in that area at that time was little short of a miracle I'd say! That was too close for comfort.

Seb drove really well, from the first corner when he and Webber got by Hamilton I was hoping he could make it to the end and get this win. The strategy Ferrari tried didn't work out how they'd hoped, but hey, they tried it. Putting Kimi on the softs for the last few laps though, that almost did work out. A few more laps and he'd have taken the win I am pretty sure but as Vettel fan I was as thrilled as he clearly was with his win here.

All in all a good race, apart from Hamilton on the damn radio whining about his tyres AGAIN!!

[Massa 0]

So the cameraman ended up with a broken shoulder and cracked ribs. That is serious enough but it could have been worse if the car was going faster, or if the tyre had bounced that bit higher and connected with his head. It was awful. He was so focused on doing his job he just never saw it coming did he?

Concussion, broken ribs, broken collarbone, bruises per Suzi Perry on Twitter. FOM statement does say he is expected to make a full recovery.

But for me, it's not the outcome that makes it bad. It's the fact a tire came off the car and the FIA made a total mockery of itself by fining a team that won $98,000,000 in prize money last year a piddly $39,000. Yes, I realize intent. Red Bull don't want their tires to come off. It's bad for the team and I'm sure the people at Red Bull feel awful about this. I still believe, though, that safety has to come before speed and this ruling does nothing to do that. It shows the FIA's intentions, and they're intentions that I'm not comfortable with. In Champ Car, for example, that would have been an automatic DQ of the team. Hitting anything on pit lane was in that series. They wanted to make sure that safety was in everyone's minds before getting the fastest stop. I'm disgusted that the FIA does not see it the same way. You have so many dangers in this sport as it is, and not holding a team accountable for a totally avoidable one just says, for me, that the FIA doesn't care at all. I'm really getting to the end of my chain here with auto racing these days and as great of a Grand Prix as it was (and a great IndyCar race, too), I'm just appalled at the lack of commitment to safety on the FIA's part, on NASCAR's part, on IndyCar's part, on the ACO's part, etc, etc. They're all being so, so stupid right now, in a year in which we've had a lot of high-profile fatalities and serious injuries (which is not to say that it would be acceptable if they were only low-profile; it doesn't matter who, to me, it matters what. However, my point is, the high-profile ones really bring attention to these things, so it's something that's been on a lot of people's minds, more than normal. I get a sinking feeling that the safety disasters, the truly avoidable ones and not the freak accidents that can never fully be eliminated, because to be honest, a lot of the bad things that happened in the major series this year have been avoidable or at least could have been lessened in severity, very few were freak, of 2013 motor racing aren't over). I just hope, somewhere, some 6-year-old kid is getting into racing the way I was years ago, because I think, like the real Massa, this Massa's going to need a replacement one day. My enthusiasm for racing is just falling apart like a Pirelli super-soft here.

[F1 FANatic 1]

Auto racing is not an antiseptic event. Dangerous things happen all the time in the pits and out on the track. Things break, mistakes are made and people can and do get hurt. It goes with the sport. Bringing back refueling won't mitigate that. If anything it will just reintroduce another potential hazard.

I'm not saying racing isn't dangerous. and I am not saying refueling has no risks. But I am saying that adding the risk of fuel fires back in will mitigate the risk of flying wheels and will in the end be safer. I have been in a fuel fire in pits before and I would gladly take a fuel fire over a wheel flying through the pits at 100kph. Of course in an ideal world you would have neither but if I had to pick between the two the fire is much easier to deal with.

Modern race suits can stand up to a fire pretty well. Much better actually than against a flying wheel. The biggest problem is the fumes from the fire and I would have everybody working on the car wear oxygen masks and tanks. Not like they need to be huge scuba tanks for 5 hours of air. You only need a 15-30 minute supply of air really. Turn if on when the driver comes in. Turn it off when the driver leaves.

I also see no reason why the camera men should not be required to wear suits and helmets like the car crews. In reality I think every person in the pit lane should be required to. Even the guys in the pit wall and then guys in the garage working the computers. And if you want to be a fashion model and movie actor and sit in the pit of a team you better be ok with looking silly on world tv in your suit and helmet.

[pabloh20 1]

So the cameraman ended up with a broken shoulder and cracked ribs. That is serious enough but it could have been worse if the car was going faster, or if the tyre had bounced that bit higher and connected with his head. It was awful. He was so focused on doing his job he just never saw it coming did he?

Indeed. One of those horrible incidents that you could see unfolding before your eyes, knowing it could be bad, praying it wouldn't be.

[Emmcee 0]

Imagine if one bounces into the team booths on the pitwall. Those should be protected with some strong perpex or something

[Angellica 0]

Bernie is taking steps to make it safer for the people working in the pit lane, I don't think it's enough but it's a start at least

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/23222900

[Rainmaster 7]

Concussion, broken ribs, broken collarbone, bruises per Suzi Perry on Twitter. FOM statement does say he is expected to make a full recovery.

But for me, it's not the outcome that makes it bad. It's the fact a tire came off the car and the FIA made a total mockery of itself by fining a team that won $98,000,000 in prize money last year a piddly $39,000. Yes, I realize intent. Red Bull don't want their tires to come off. It's bad for the team and I'm sure the people at Red Bull feel awful about this. I still believe, though, that safety has to come before speed and this ruling does nothing to do that. It shows the FIA's intentions, and they're intentions that I'm not comfortable with. In Champ Car, for example, that would have been an automatic DQ of the team. Hitting anything on pit lane was in that series. They wanted to make sure that safety was in everyone's minds before getting the fastest stop. I'm disgusted that the FIA does not see it the same way. You have so many dangers in this sport as it is, and not holding a team accountable for a totally avoidable one just says, for me, that the FIA doesn't care at all. I'm really getting to the end of my chain here with auto racing these days and as great of a Grand Prix as it was (and a great IndyCar race, too), I'm just appalled at the lack of commitment to safety on the FIA's part, on NASCAR's part, on IndyCar's part, on the ACO's part, etc, etc. They're all being so, so stupid right now, in a year in which we've had a lot of high-profile fatalities and serious injuries (which is not to say that it would be acceptable if they were only low-profile; it doesn't matter who, to me, it matters what. However, my point is, the high-profile ones really bring attention to these things, so it's something that's been on a lot of people's minds, more than normal. I get a sinking feeling that the safety disasters, the truly avoidable ones and not the freak accidents that can never fully be eliminated, because to be honest, a lot of the bad things that happened in the major series this year have been avoidable or at least could have been lessened in severity, very few were freak, of 2013 motor racing aren't over). I just hope, somewhere, some 6-year-old kid is getting into racing the way I was years ago, because I think, like the real Massa, this Massa's going to need a replacement one day. My enthusiasm for racing is just falling apart like a Pirelli super-soft here.

I do think it's important to send a message and as fines go I suppose you could argue that doesn't send a strong enough message. But I don't actually think the severity of the fine will have any preventative capacity for future incidents. By which I mean, to eliminate this kind of incident, the fines would have to be at such a level that the teams would consider it a financial risk to do fast pit stops and so wouldn't attempt to do them. I don't know what level of fine that would be, but it would be something ridiculous. In any environment where you are trying to change the tyres in those kind of times, and the tyres are the limiting factor for the stop, you will always see mistakes as long as you are applying fines that aren't completely out of proportion.

My point being that I don't think fines will make a difference from a safety perspective, though they could at least be higher or worse to give a safety message, I agree. The teams and their members already have such massive incentive to not do mistakes that a fine just doesn't become relevant until it becomes so high that it isn't worth the risk of doing a fast pit stop. In that case, it would be more reasonable and less greedy from the FIA to simply ban pit stops or impose a minimum pit stop time. Not that I endorse that at all.

So the upshot is that I think dealing with this particular safety issue has to be done in a different way. Bernie's idea of moving camera people out of the way isn't a bad one. Camera's have zoom for this reason. Giving everybody safety gear isn't a bad idea either. If you want to discuss ways of preventing the actual incident rather than preparing for it, that's much more difficult. I don't see too many ways of doing it, other than banning pit stops, ensuring pit stops take longer somehow, or perhaps looking for some kind of mechanical solution in this area to prevent cars leaving when the wheel isn't secured properly. Perhaps some kind of sensor linked to the ECU? I have no idea but a mechanical sport should consider mechanical solutions to safety issues. We are of course both agreeing in a broad sense that more needs to be done, I just think fines are the least effective penalty for this kind of thing, as long as you want fast pit stops.

[Massa 0]

We're in agreement, actually.

My post didn't include, sloppily, but should've, that I don't mean to indicate a penalty to Red Bull (as I said earlier; I'd dock them WCC points in addition to a heavier fine, personally) was all that should be done. Obviously, a penalty isn't going to prevent mistakes because they aren't actually trying to make mistakes.

They need to, as in any safety circumstance, find a way to make these instances less frequent, and find a way to make the consequences of these incidents less severe. So, we're on the same page. I just felt that, on top of making actual changes with actual impact (like moving the cameramen or requiring everyone in hot pits to have certain gear), a message needed to be sent if only to keep it in their minds a bit more.

And now for a meltdown :

I guess what bothers me the most is that, so long as I am watching racing, it is a guarantee, entirely inevitable, 100% chance, that I will see someone die live on TV again and while I always knew that, it's just becoming realer and realer the more near-misses there have been this year, from the tires flying into the stands at Daytona to the fatal accidents of Leffler and Simonsen which I thankfully did not see to the blowouts throwing debris at other drivers to this tire to the rolling Marussia...it's off-topic, I guess, but I just question a lot, lately, if I want to be the one watching this stuff. It's not a knock on racing. It's not a call for racing to end or to totally mutilate itself to become something else. It's simply a wondering if it's time to pull out my (time) investment in a figurative company that's increasingly making me frustrated/worried but is also the "family business" (not in a literal sense at all, but in that there is such an attachment to it).

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

Well Eric, motorsport is dangerous. But then so are other sports, indeed life.

We've had two deaths in F1 in 19 years.

The same number died during Major League Baseball and during professional swimming competitions over the same period.

There were 36 during professional soccer over the same period.

And one death in athletics, fencing and figure skating.

So whilst I understand the sentiment, given the dangers inherent in F1 it is still safer than many other sports and death always has been and always will be a feature of all sports.

[Quiet One 15]

Blah, blah, batracer, blah

Eric,

You got too carried away with all the safety stuff. Now, you know that I am a 100% supporter of safety against "macho guys go ahead and die for our entertainment", but you can't get that argument to the extreme without finding yourself at the point you remarked in your spoiler.

Motorsport is inherently dangerous. Everybody says so. Many also use that as an excuse to condone lax safety standards, which I think is rubbish. But the fact that it is inherently dangerous remains. You cannot avoid that. It would be like finding a way of making boxing matches "safe". You can improve safety, but unless you forbid both contender from punching each other and instead try to K.O. the other guy by staring at him probably won't work.

Even with all that, you are better off watching F1 than, let's say, football (the American b#####d version), or football (the perfect, pure, rest-of-the-world-version). Ditto for most Olympic disciplines, for example.

Let's not forget that there has not been a single driver/team fatality since Senna, and the few others were freak accidents or due to lacking safety standards that were promptly solved. This accident, as explained by George and Bernie (I think they are the same person..shh..) is more down to the idiotic practice of allowing unprotected untrained personal walking around in a zone were they should never be. Still, the wheel could have hit anybody else, of course, and that would be very bad luck indeed.

Let's be frank, it's not as if every other day we watch tires getting loose in parts of the track with people, or cars exploding or nothing like that. This was an accident and a few more measures can diminish the chances of this happening. Accidents can and will happening. More safety? Sure. No more accidents? Impossible. Learn to live with them or turn off the TV altogether.

Regarding the punishment, I think that the spirit was more or less like that. It was an accident due to a freak set of circumstances. Unless you can tell that RBR has below average safety practices I can't see how any kind of punishment can avoid these situations from happening again. The best way would be to set a miniimum time for pit as George pointed out. I know people will bitch about how much the pitstop wars enhance the spectacle but I don't see that being worth guys forced to change tires in under 2.5 secs which probably increases the chances of mistake enormously.I can live without the pitstop wars.

[Massa 0]

The thread's not about me. Sorry. I took it in that direction and shouldn't have (which isn't to say I don't feel the way I feel, because I do, but I shouldn't have expressed that here).

[Ikyrotz 0]

Well Eric, motorsport is dangerous. But then so are other sports, indeed life.

We've had two deaths in F1 in 19 years.

The same number died during Major League Baseball and during professional swimming competitions over the same period.

There were 36 during professional soccer over the same period.

And one death in athletics, fencing and figure skating.

So whilst I understand the sentiment, given the dangers inherent in F1 it is still safer than many other sports and death always has been and always will be a feature of all sports.

Your comparison is not really fair, though. Two deaths in 20 years in a sport that has around 20 athletes competing 20 times a year is quite a lot (and that's not counting deaths of marshals and other support personel.). If soccer players died at the same rate, we'd have 40 deaths in Premier League alone over that time span. Racing is dangerous, fortunately a lot safer these days than 20 years ago.

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

Now you see, if they just filled the tires with custard, the tyre would have not bounced so much....

[BradSpeedMan 6]

Finally this man is forced into some sense by his team's performance! Hope the bad form continues!

http://www.gptoday.com/full_story/view/457798/Montezemolo_Fewer_words_and_more_achievements/

[Quiet One 15]

The thread's not about me. Sorry. I took it in that direction and shouldn't have (which isn't to say I don't feel the way I feel, because I do, but I shouldn't have expressed that here).

Don't be silly! You mentioned something bothering you and we tried to explain to you why you shouldn't feel so upset about that. It was very much on topic and we replied because we obviously thought it was worth it.

[BobMendon 0]

Every death in every sport is tragic. It happens. What happened with the tire incident was unnecessary and preventable. It was obviously a failure of team communication. The person responsible for releasing the car should be checking that each wheel man has his hand in the air before releasing the car. It did not happen. In this case, that individual should be fined but the regulations don't allow it. Therefore the team is fined and I suspect somebody might be unemployed as of close of business yesterday when everything was packed into the transporters. I think F1 has an incredible safety record today as compared what it was like when I watched the races in the 50's as a kid or even later in the 60's and 70's. The many technological innovations have made the sport safer than most hometown sports games.

[The Shadow 0]

Now you see, if they just filled the tires with custard, the tyre would have not bounced so much....

It would have had more mass..

Custard is denser than air. Therefore would have been more dangerous

[Emmcee 0]

Just can't Beleive webbers luck, this sort of crap always happens to him, kers issues,bad pit stops, telementary issues, bad starts. Bloody frustrating when you stay up all hours of the night only to see this, glad the camera wasn't any more badly injured than he was as it was a big hit. Webbers luck is almost as predictable as Schumi winning all time all those years ago. It like winning the lottery when he wins. As it comes as such a surprise.

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

It would have had more mass..

Custard is denser than air. Therefore would have been more dangerous

You mean you have found a flaw in my custard idea? I am shocked....

[Angellica 0]

Finally this man is forced into some sense by his team's performance! Hope the bad form continues!

http://www.gptoday.c...e_achievements/

You have to wonder how long Alonso will stay at Ferrari if they can't give him a winning car soon. With all their money and resources not to mention their history and so on, they should be doing better than they are.

[JHS18 0]

We've had two deaths in F1 in 19 years.

I'd argue that Formula One is by far and away the "safest" form of motorsport there is in terms of the number of recent deaths/injuries compared to other forms of racing. That should be an oxymoron, but isn't.

[Angellica 0]

Well Eric, motorsport is dangerous. But then so are other sports, indeed life.

We've had two deaths in F1 in 19 years.

I assume you're counting after Senna died in 1994. I am afraid I have to correct you, we've lost three marshals since then.

2000 Paolo Ghislimberti at Monza hit by a wheel from Heinz-Harald Frentzen's car

2001 Graham Beverage in Australia, again hit by a wheel this time from Jacques Villeneuve's car

2013 We had that poor guy who got run over by that crane. If they have released his name I am afraid I don't recall having seen it.

But you're right, essentially F1 is a safe sport most of the time, but you have to be aware of the dangers as well. I mean Massa's accident was a seriously bad one as well, he was lucky it wasn't fatal. So you do have to be aware of the dangers.

By the same token I knew a woman who died falling down her stairs, a freak accident.

You can't take all risk out of life, you just have to try to limit them as much as possible within reason.

[Emmcee 0]

I assume you're counting after Senna died in 1994. I am afraid I have to correct you, we've lost three marshals since then.

2000 Paolo Ghislimberti at Monza hit by a wheel from Heinz-Harald Frentzen's car

2001 Graham Beverage in Australia, again hit by a wheel this time from Jacques Villeneuve's car

2013 We had that poor guy who got run over by that crane. If they have released his name I am afraid I don't recall having seen it.

But you're right, essentially F1 is a safe sport most of the time, but you have to be aware of the dangers as well. I mean Massa's accident was a seriously bad one as well, he was lucky it wasn't fatal. So you do have to be aware of the dangers.

By the same token I knew a woman who died falling down her stairs, a freak accident.

You can't take all risk out of life, you just have to try to limit them as much as possible within reason.

No it's Roland Ratzenberger,killed in Saturday qualify for the 1994 San Marino gp, a day before Senna was killed and Rubens Barrichello had a real bad accident in the Friday practice where he was nearly killed, but escaped with a broken nose. Very bad weekend for formula one that was. All or most of these changes we see today were implemented because of that tragic weekend.