Slow motion video shows Maldonado’s first-lap crash

2015 Australian Grand Prix

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A fan with a great viewing spot for the first race of the season captured this extraordinary video of Pastor Maldonado crashing out of the Australian Grand Prix.

Maldonado made contact with Felipe Nasr at turn two at the Albert Park circuit, sending his Lotus into the barriers not far from where the fan was standing.

With Romain Grosjean suffering a race-ending power loss on the first lap of the race, it was a short first grand prix of 2015 for Lotus.

Thanks to Andae23 for the tip

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    39 comments on “Slow motion video shows Maldonado’s first-lap crash”

    1. You can almost hear the lotus mechanics scream in the background as Pastor in slow motion skids for the barrier… NNNNNNNnnnoooooooooooooo!!!!!!

      1. @dragoll More like “NOOOOT AGAAAAAAIIIN” :P

        1. jesus christ people with the damn pastor bashing. it wasnt his fault at all.

    2. It would either have been a marshal or a member of the police with a camera, or possibly even someone from the hospitality suite behind with a selfie stick. The pro photographers wouldn’t be taking video on lap 1 and the public aren’t allowed to get withing 2m of the concrete barriers, and the fence sections with escape slots have special cages around them.

      It was a marshal standing in the wrong spot (in front of the opening), like this, who was struck between the escape slot by Villeneuve’s flying car in 2001. It really is unsafe for anyone to be in that position especially at T2 on the opening lap.

      1. It was actually a tire from JV’s car that unfortunately just snuck through the opening that was just big enough. One of those very low odds, flukey kind of things that probably seemed so unlikely for the poor fellow that was standing there, on guard in case he and his fellow marshals had to run out onto the track/runoff to help a driver.

      2. The photographer area is a little further back along the track, it was definitely a marshall.

    3. I think you will find Nasr made contact with Maldonado, not the other way round. This time it actually wasn’t his thought!.

      1. Not really, Maldonado turned in on Nasr who was wheel by wheel with Kimi. But it still was a rookie mistake from Nasr, not knowing that Maldonado doesn’t use mirrors.

        1. Pastor got hit in his rear left wheel. Hardly something he could avoid.

        2. Maldonado didnt turn in on Nasr, Maldonado was hit on the rear, as nasr was playing bumper cars with Kimi trying to avoid him. It was a racing incident, and I’m not saying it was Nasr’s fault, it just wasn’t Maldonado’s this time.

          1. It looks that he thought he’s past Nasr and turned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYhsjhqIjRM
            Anyway Maldonado get’s in these kind of incidents too often. He’s even now has crashed in each of the Sauber livery. Maybe they should switch to a pink one.

            1. I’m sorry but from 14 to 16 second mark you can quite clearly see Kimi come back on the track, who Nasr unfortunately can’t avoid, who then tags the back of Pastor.
              I have no feeling towards Maldonado one way or the other, and yes he does have a rather colourful pass with crashing, but IMO no one is to blameits a racing incident completely.
              Maldonado isnt at fault .

            2. Try the bbc f1 website, its a much clearer picture.

            3. Sorry I mean’t from 11 sec’s onwards!.

            4. Well I see that Maldonado moves just before the contact away from white line on his right, if he had done the move few moments later there wouldn’t be a contact. And contact with Kimi seems to happen at the same time, not before. Maybe there is an onboard video of Nasr or Maldonado? That could clear it up.

            5. From what I can see he is nearly a car length in front of Nasr coming round the bend. No sudden jerky movements from Mal, or obstructing a clear line tha Nasr may have taken if kimi had been there. Nasr has moved to far off his own line to avoid Kimi.

              http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/31893972

              Looking at this vid Mal is following the middle white giving Nasr and the car in front plenty of room. Nasr is hugging the inner white line at 14 secs, Nasr starts to pull further to his right off that line ( which he would have needed to do to make the corner), and would probably have undertaken Mal on the inside, if kimi hadn’t come back on track in front of him. Kimi and Nasr touch causing a chain reaction with Nasr touching Mal.
              As said previously a racing incident, no one to blame but its clear that Nasr touches Mal not the other way round.

            6. From the BBC video we can almost see who took the OP^ video, but it’s not quite in the BBC video!

        3. Not sure what the fuzz is about because it is clear to see from every angle that Maldanado was involved in the crush. Thus by power of common and previous knowledge we know why there was a crash… There is no need to establish who started it as that is irrelevant in anyway shape or form.

          1. I’m not making a fuss, In my opinion I felt the article which said Pastor made contact with Nasr( when it was the other way round), lead people to believe that it was Maldonado’s fault again, and it wasn’t.
            Also with all respect, what may be irrelevant to you, isn’t to me.

      2. Personally (my opinion from my own on-track shenanigans) if I was in Maldonado’s place I would have left way more room. He knew that Nasr was still there with Raikkonen on the other side, as he had just passed both of them. He understood the speed differential and should have known he had not cleared Nasr yet. So there was no reason to cut in front of Nasr so closely. I would classify it as a “racing incident” and nobody’s fault, but there was simply no reason for Maldonado to take the risk in the first place. If he stayed a foot further to the right he still would have been in front of Nasr and would have not risked a collision at all. I also said the same thing after the Hamilton-Rosberg clash at Spa last year – when the downside is so great and the upside so small, why not just be a tad conservative?

        Of course like I said this is my own personal opinion as someone who has to pay for his own twisted sheetmetal when he ends up in a wall :)

        1. robert said on 16th March 2015, 15:03

          Nasr starts to pull further to his right off that line ( which he would have needed to do to make the corner), and would probably have undertaken Mal on the inside if kimi hadn’t come back on track in front of him. Kimi and Nasr touch causing a chain reaction with Nasr touching Mal.
          ——————–
          Well Kimi wasnt likely to spend the entire race off track it was obvious he would come back on at earliest opportunity so Nasr should have anticipated this

          1. Fair enough, perhaps it wasn’t the best thought-out maneuver, but I still think it’s asking a lot to have him just lift off and sit behind Kimi when there was a gap next to him. Sure he could have anticipated contact knowing Maldonado’s tendencies, but he would have lost at least 3-4 places on track in doing this. Whereas from Maldonado’s point of view he also could have anticipated contact and would have lost nothing by leaving some more room on his left. Hindsight is of course 20/20 but sometimes I wonder if Pastor ever even looks at his past mistakes in the first place, haha.

    4. Wow, that was incredible. The grass coming up towards the camera was amazing, don’t think I’ve see a shot that close before other than on demo runs.

    5. I’m not sure why Lotus don’t just put MAL into GRO’s car. That way all the crashes and reliability problems would be in one place.
      Joking aside, I also saw this as not really being MAL’s fault, the aerial view seemed to show Nasr wanting to sneak into the narrowing gap next to RAI at the last moment. A racing incident perhaps, but also a touch of rookie error and/or off-season rustiness on Nasr’s part.
      (Says the bloke who’s never even driven a go-kart)

    6. just goes to show how slow people react to such sudden accidents .. its always safe to be further away from the walls as a spectator

      1. As you can see in this video its perfectly safe close to the walls aswell.

    7. That AMG Mercedes at the end sounds epic.

    8. It was case of chain reaction, Vettel was slow of the line, Kimi was ahead and got squeezed off by Vettel, had to back off (he says car went into anti stall) then came Nasr who just piped Kimi, Sainz from behind also taping Kimi, and then comes Pastor got hit in his back wheel, just unfortunate chain of things.
      Good to see that evrybody involved is OK.

      1. Kimi said his car went into anti-stall after he was hit from behind. Sainz admitted he braked too late and hit Kimi. Kim’s car didn’t go into anti-stall because of Vettel.

    9. I hate to be a stickler for good English, I know mine isn’t the best, especially on forums, however, when a phrase is constructed as it is below:

      Maldonado made contact with Felipe Nasr at turn two

      Maldonado is assumed to be the actor who did something to someone else (Nasr in this case). The sentence basically says Maldonado was at fault for the accident.

      However, he was not. The correct phrasing should be:

      Nasr made contact with Maldonado.

      Maldonado already catches flack for the accidents he causes, but that doesn’t mean he should catch flack for those he doesn’t.

      So the events really went – Sainz hits Kimi, causing Kimi’s car to go into anti-stall. Nasr got too aggressive trying to make the gap between Kimi and Maldonado. Nasr hit Kimi then bounced into Maldonado.

      So Vettel wasn’t at fault for anything (despite Sky’s narrative), nor was Maldonado, which is apparently the narrative of everyone in F1.

      1. @uan Well said, agree 100%.

    10. None of you guys are seeing the whole picture! In fact there was a butterfly in turn 2 that Nasr tried to avoid! Butterfly made it away safely.

    11. It’s not Maldonado’s fault, it was a gust of wind!

    12. just one question, is the cameraman taller than a 3 year old child?

    13. And now, for me, the video has been removed due to F1 copyright infringement. As social media friendly as always I see…

      1. Yep, I confirm, the video has been taken out by the Formula 1 Management for copyrights already !
        They really are a pain…

    14. Connor Pelkmans
      19th March 2015, 15:58

      Lol so funny butterfly

    15. Connor Pelkmans
      19th March 2015, 15:59

      So now f! drivers care about butterflies more then themselves?

    Comments are closed.