F1 Fanatic

MotorRacing always needs to evaluate these crashes and find what went wrong, or if anything from the car could’ve influenced the crash. Sure, it’s not Aerospace levels of investigation, but any piece of information that they can gather could ultimately save a life..

Edit: plus it gives a certain kind of closure to the entire event. Fans (or more likely, not fans) can believe that indycar has taken the situation seriously and is actively trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again.. To just say “it’s horrible but these things happen” and try and forget the whole situation doesn’t send positive messages to the public

I wasn’t able to watch all of the press conference but the following points caught my attention:

Randy Bernard discounted field size as a contributory factor and said it was now unclear whether IndyCar fields of any size might race at the track safely in future. He said they had originally sanctioned the track to hold races of up to 37 cars.

He also addressed question of starting Wheldon from the back of the field, pointing out that it was not uncommon for quick drivers to have to start at the back due to rule violations, and that Wheldon’s qualifying position for the race was 28th.

Brian Barnhart said Wheldon was running 24th at the time of the crash.

He added Wheldon had begun braking before hitting the car ahead of him (Charlie Kimball) at 165mph.

After being launched into the air Wheldon’s car struck a fence post which caused a “deep defect” in the chassis, striking the cockpit and Wheldon’s crash helmet. This caused Wheldon’s fatal injuries.

When asked, Barnhart said it wouldn’t have made a difference in this crash if the fence posts had been mounted on the outside of the fence (as at Indianapolis) instead of the inside (as at Las Vegas).

There was no evidence of mechanical or structural failures.

Bernard said it’s not the case that if one high-banked oval like Las Vegas is deemed unsuitable for IndyCars, it does not follow that all other tracks of a similar configuration are:

“Each high-banked oval has unique characteristics and each should be considered individually. The banking is not the only geometry taken into consideration.”

He added that drivers were able to run multiple lines around the Las Vegas track pretty much wherever they chose, which was highly unusual and a contributory factor:

“We’ve had pack racing at other tracks before, but there’s always been a limit. You couldn’t use the entire race track.”

What I saw of the press conference was broadly in line with what I expected. As some of you will know I wrote about the crash on the site earlier:

Rethinking oval racing for IndyCar after Las Vegas

The full report should be available soon.

@Magnificent-Geoffrey Perhaps not those of us who follow motor racing closely but of course they’ve got to go through everything with a fine-toothed comb to ensure they draw the correct conclusions.

I was surprised to learn just how (comparatively) low Wheldon’s speed of contact with Kimball was.

And given the widespread attention drawn to IndyCar by the crash, and some of the staggeringly ill-informed comment on it by some major newspapers, they’ve absolutely got to make sure they make all the facts public and squash some of the more lurid rumours and claims.

Here is the accident investigation report:

Las Vegas Accident Investigation (PDF)
Las Vegas Driver Resumes (PDF)

Someone actually tried to suggest, in the aftermath of the accident, that Dan had driven into the crash at full throttle and without trying to avoid it (yes, I know, it’s a ridiculous suggestion, but someone was actually unhinged enough to make it). At least the report destroys that idea, for the last 3 seconds before the crash he was doing all that was possible to slow the car (page 12 explains the telemetry data from Wheldon’s car in the last few seconds).

@xjr15jaaag

I’m just amazed that he said field size wasn’t a contributing factor

I think the facts speak for themselves:

Wheldon was running 24th when he crashed. None of the ten cars behind him played a role in the accident.

Therefore I don’t see how you can make the case that field size caused it.

Again, I wrote on this at greater length earlier:

Rethinking oval racing for IndyCar after Las Vegas

@Icthyes The worrying thing is, even if they’d recognised at the time that the pack was too close together and an accident was inevitable, could they have safely stopped the race?

If they’d thrown a caution, would all the cars have been able to slow down without hitting each other? I think of Ernesto Viso’s GP2 crash at Magny-Cours in 2007, which began when other cars were slowing for a safety car deployment:

I agree with @Ajokay . Catch fencing is good for catching flying debris, but there has to be some alternative. Wasn’t there a crash around a decade ago in CART where a car went into the the catch fencing on a street circuit and the car disintegrated? I think it was actually fatal as well, which highlights just how dangerous it is when open cockpit cars go into the catch fencing.