Fabio Leimer's huge GP2 crash caught on camera
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I know it’s not much to create a forum topic about, but here is some amateur footage of Fabio Leimer’s enormous crash at Raidillon that the FOM television cameras failed to capture.
As you probably thought when you saw the wreckage on TV, it was a truly massive accident and it is simply amazing that he escaped unharmed.
Oh my god. That car just disintegrated!
A great example of the good work tyre barriers do, dispersing most of the impact.
Also, the tarmac run-off, while not slowing him down, at least kept him flat and he didn’t bounce, as he probably would have in gravel.
It concerned me how little the cars passing the accident were slowing despite the yellow flags. Had Leimer’s car bounced back onto the track, as it so nearly did, surely one of the cars behind would have drove straight into the wreckage at full speed? It’s a scary thought
@Ned: It was a pretty bad place to have an accident, for a start I dont imagine they could see the wreckage from the bottom of Eau Rouge, and secondly it’s not a corner where you can just slam on the brakes or lift right off the throttle.
I dont know when the yellows started waving at the bottom of the hill so it’s difficult to say if the cars immediately after ignored them or not, plus these cars always look fast, even when they’ve slowed down considerably.
According to Martin Brundle, waved yellow flags are an order to drivers to slow and be prepared to come to a complete stop if necessary. None of those drivers were in a position to do that.
Obviously, you can make some allowances because of the nature of the corner, but I still think there is a danger that drivers(particularly young ones) are not taking enough notice of yellow flags, and one day this could have very serious consequences
I’m in total agreement Ned, yellows were clearly being shown, but the pack was continuing on at nigh on full speed.
Carrying that kind of speed through an accident zone is extraordinarily dangerous. I’m sure many of us need no reminding of Alez Zanardi’s truly horrendous accident over in Germany. Scenes like that make me realise how close we are to having that happen again.
Another thought to consider there is the presence of marshals. Had leimer been trapped in the car, or there been a fire, many more marshals would have been required to go right out into the track to help. Again it is not hard to forsee something truly dreadful occuring with cars continuing as though they were still in race conditions.
More to his crash the worst even could have been someone collecting him as Eau Rouge is a blind corner.Happy to see him walk away without trouble.
Isn’t it single yellow flag – no need to stop and double yellow flags – prepare to stop? Anyway, when nowadays there are big boards showing flags I believe drivers concentrate more on them than marshal posts. Especially when Singapore Grand Prix takes place in few weeks since it’s more difficult to see marshal posts in the dark.
Not sure about the yellows actually having been waved there for the first drivers coming through. It took a while before the Marshalls got on that. But I do think its worrying to see how fast the others were going there.
Best part is, it seems he got out without any major harm. Good to see safety measures have worked there.
I believe single yellow = slow down and no overtaking
Double yellow is the slow down and prepare to stop order.
Either way, they were still going too fast. And as for suggesting that they couldn’t see the accident hence didn’t slow down, I would have presumed that that was the purpose of the yellows… unless as was suggested they weren’t waved far enough down the track
Single Yellows mean that there is “danger” up ahead.. and no overtaking, etc.
Double Yellows mean there is “serious danger” up ahead.. and prepare to stop.
Only problem is that the definition of “danger” is fairly fluid. A Single Yellow could mean a car is parked off the racing line, or that someone has buried it in the tyre wall on the other side of the track.
When Racing, no-one wants to give away any time at all, and drivers will try and make it through the Yellows with little to no time loss.. For example, when Karting they throw the Yellow even if there’s only a kart off the racing line in the Gravel. It’s gotten to the point where no-one actually slows down for the Yellow, and everyone keeps the throttle pinned hoping that the crash is out of the way..
The Marshall’s need to decide on a definite Yellow meaning, and they need to enforce the “no passing rule”.. The “Double Waved Yellows” idea is good, but they need to only use it on extreme occasions to avoid the “boy who cried wolf” kind of result
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