Video: Fernando Alonso’s Fuji crash onboard

5th December 2007, 9:19 by Keith Collantine 14 Comments »

Here’s some new footage of Fernando Alonso’s crash in the Japanese Grand Prix taken from onboard his McLaren.

Very little footage of the accident was shown during the live broadcast of the event on ITV. This video, taken from the Official F1 Season Review, shows how the crash unfolded.

It also shows onboard footage of Sebastian Vettel crashing into Mark Webber, and the last-lap battle between Robert Kubica and Felipe Massa. See the video below.

More on the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix

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14 comments on Video: Fernando Alonso’s Fuji crash onboard

Dave said on 5th December 2007, 10:15

Could someone explain why FA accident happened? Please… Thanks

Craig said on 5th December 2007, 10:46

I had always assumed Alonso made a mistake to cause the accident – running wide over a kerb, or getting caught out on the white lines or something – but from that it doesn’t seem to be the case.

Has anything official been said about the cause? I suppose the car was in a bit of a mess to find out anything for sure!

I still feel sorry for Vettel after that crash, he looked over at what Hamilton was up to out wide and the next thing Webber was practically stopped in front of him. Shame for Webber too, but just one of those things I suppose.

Keith Collantine said on 5th December 2007, 10:48

I remember after the accident Ron Dennis suggested that damage from Alonso’s earlier accident with Vettel might have robbed him of some downforce. But Alonso said he’d just lost control.

Michael K said on 5th December 2007, 10:50

Alonso lost the back when exiting the corner, he must’ve had a tiny bit of oversteer in the corner already and when he straightened the car the back stepped out. He was basically too quick. Webber doesn’t look that good in the crash with Vettel, whereas of course Hamilton’s move has nothing to do with leading the field safely in the rain. Vettel couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Keith Collantine said on 5th December 2007, 10:55

Martin Whitmarsh had this to say at the time:

Both our drivers were hit from behind today. Unfortunately for Fernando he was hit harder than Lewis. The floor was very badly damaged and flapping around, the rear pick-ups were damaged.

We could see in the data that he had lost a significant amount of downforce and the overall balance of the car, so the likelihood of him aquaplaning was always going to be greater than it was for anyone else out there. He was going to battle on.

We don’t know in truth, there may even have been a mechanical failure. There’s no evidence of it at the moment, but he’s been hit quite hard, and maybe he had a problem. Even if he hadn’t, it was quite understandable that he was driving a real handful of a car. He lost approaching 10% of the downforce, a sizeable amount.

Tommy B said on 5th December 2007, 12:00

The Massa and Kubica battle I can watch that over and over and over. Most enjoyable bit of racing I’ve ever seen!

Sri said on 5th December 2007, 12:09

Interesting point that you made Keith. For once it will silence people who claimed “Alonso couldn’t handle his car, when Lewis could”.

doctorvee said on 5th December 2007, 13:49

This just underlines for me how terrible the direction of the Japanese Grand Prix was. And it is, every single year, without fail, the worst coverage of the year. Given that FOM are now responsible for the world feed at almost every race, I cannot fathom why they don’t also take control of the Japanese Grand Prix, because it is by far the worst coverage. Before I had assumed that the only reason we hadn’t seen footage of Alonso’s accident or indeed Webber and Vettel was because the footage didn’t exist. But it did exist — we just weren’t shown these two hugely important incidents by the awful Fuji TV director. What a shambles!

M Smith said on 5th December 2007, 17:21

Looks like a great DVD review, already preordered it!

SoLiD said on 5th December 2007, 18:43

You hear Alonso going on the throttle, maybe a bit early…
but that’s pure aquaplanning, it was sooo wet..can’t do anything about it.
Can’t blame Alonso for the crash, he has proven to be great and not a crasher!
(last year (2006) he used 1 chassis all season)

M Smith said on 5th December 2007, 20:03

The Kubica/Massa was amazing! I could watch that for ages!

Alonso’s accident looked like unavoidable aquaplanning, he was on track, then suddenly under braking, experienced massive oversteer and went straight to the scene of the accident.

The team radio clips straight after the Vettel/Webber crash should be good to hear (without the Italian voice talking over it, of course.)

alan said on 5th December 2007, 22:51

great racing and proper wheel to wheel stuff from masa and kubica – well what points out of ten for the organisations coverage? – 2 – they were there and they showed the winner – great to see different perspective of a race

milos said on 6th December 2007, 4:55

The DVD seems to be worth it …

I wonder how long it will take before this video is taken down

sam said on 7th December 2007, 0:06

If this were on YouTube, it wouldn’t last a second.

I agree with doctorvee about the Fuji TV coverage. Immediately after the Japanese race was over (several months ago) I made a post in here about how I felt the coverage was awful.

I’m wondering if someone can tell me what Webber was saying after the wreck.. couldn’t hear over the Italian voice-over.