So what I have learned from this video - mandatory Seatbelts and helmets have been the most significant rules changes in terms of safety - Secondary causes of death for drivers are usually due to fire, so extinguishers, better fuel tanks, and fire proof overalls have made a big difference - Spectator fatalities in F1 were surprisingly common, and in hindsight it was pretty obvious to keep them away from the track - F1 drivers commonly suffered leg injuries from crashes due to the lack of a safety cell, and because their legs would go past the front wheels in the cockpit - The Dale Earnhardt device (HANS device) prevents neck injuries due to massive deceleration
The HANS device was to protect the neck yes but more so to stop the whiplash effect which caused basilar skull fractures exactly what killed Dale and senna and Roland too
@@MrDannyboyhall senna was killed by pieces of the car literally going through his skull. There was no Hans device that was going to save him. Look at the pool of blood that rapidly expands from him. Imagine getting an ice pick through the eye into your skull
It would probably have taken some lives as well, Niki Lauda for example. He couldn't unbuckle and with a halo it would be more difficult to help him in the car.
While I appreciate and agree with the sentiment, it implies that safety is the number 1 priority, and that's simply not true at all. They're shoulder to shoulder doing 200mph in open wheeled cars with a helmet and a crossbar to keep them safe... It's ridiculous. The fans, the drivers and everyone else involved, we're all ridiculous.
Since Grosjean's crash at Bahrain, I haven't seen anyone question the legitimacy of the halo, and I doubt I ever will. Without question the halo saved Roman from decapitation that day.
Most people didn't,. the most common complaint was because of halo supporters claiming every single accident in the history of F1 would have 100% been avoided with halo, which does get a bit annoying.
Yep I hated the halo and was against it I still hate the look of it but i do like the fact that it has already saved drivers and you won’t hear me speak out against it ever again
@@MrDannyboyhall I agree, however it's now reaching the point where every single accident is met with "OMG halo saved his life" even though there have been comparable accidents in the past where the drivers were not injured. I'm glad it's there, but the supporters need to realise it's not the miracle cure to everything.
Halo saved Zhou on July 3, 2022 at Silverstone. It saved Hamilton on Sept 12, 2021 at Monza. It saved Grosjean on November 29, 2020 at Bahrain. And it saved Leclerc on August 26, 2018 at Spa. And that is just in the short time I've been following Formula 1.
It doesn't matter what safety features we've got. I can only cheer for it's development. I'm also always hype for how they come about. It's magnificent to see all of the research that goes into it.
@@jamieleslie7518 just take a look at the grosjean accident you ignorant twat. no way in hell he survives that without the halo. anyone saying anything else lives in wonderland.
@Jamie Leslie 4 deaths in 5 years would be an unprecedented rate, but look at the accidents. Zhou would have died for sure, his head would have dragged because the roll hoop was destroyed. Hamilton would have had contact on the top of his head. Cant say for sure if it would have been fatal, but a major head/neck injury. Grosjean would have been decapitated without the halo. The halo bent the fence up and away from his head. And just like Hamilton, Leclerc would have had contact on his head.
The ammount of spectators death is honestly staggering. I'd assume you would realize that sitting right beside the race track isn't exactly the safest of options
Yeah. Before the Le Mans disaster the worst ever motor racing accident was at Monza in 1927, where 26 spectators were killed after a Bugatti plowed into the crowd on the main straight.
there's nothing like being close, really close to the track. the point is that you must know the risk, and if it happens no one must complain. the sport must not change because something possible happened to someone who has chosen to be there.
@@PSspecialist it's not the sport that enjoys the popularity, it's the show that does. your flaw is perspective. if you look at the "tobacco and alcohol brand" era, the money involved in the SPORT were huge, for the era, they were even racing in the eastern block during the cold war... and that was almost always WITHOUT the huge tv support. you can tell by just looking at the varying quality of tv coverages. it's not that I don't care, i just think risk is the main pillar of motorracing. as JVilleneuve said when the marshall died at Melbourne to the "how to prevent this kind of things?" question... "you should stop racing".
@@MrSniperfox29 I'm starting to get tired of HALO lovers claiming it was the cure all for all accidents in the sport. Wonder what they will say if someone dies from an accident totally unrelated to the device...
@@largol33t1 lmao “HALO lovers” is such a weird way to put it. It’s like saying “seatbelt lovers” or “first aid kit lovers”, or for any other device that may aid in saving someone’s life, while not single-handedly preventing every theoretical accident
I agree but I also think there is no way of knowing if the Halo would not have helped. for all we know it actually could have resulted in a less serious injury in some of the earlier crashes where there were no seat belts. Not likely but possibly
Drivers were more skilled thats what it was, if you put a modern driver in the car there is no way they would survive, F1 drivers from 50-80 were a different breed
Helmut Koinigg's crash is just so terrifying, imagine how the marshalls felt when they saw his body without a head and the head laying in the middle of the track.
And that low speed is what allows for there to be the small amounts of run off that there is at Monaco. Because of the shear amount of slow corners. And to make things worse, Jeddah and Miami had less run off than Monaco does.
If they want to make racing safer, we have the technology to slow the crash replays down to 0.25 to see how it could have been prevented and just slow these guys down to 35 mph.
There were four deaths in Monaco between 1948 and 1967, the only F1 driver to die at Monaco was Lorenzo Bandini. IMHO the generally slower speeds, the changes made to the course after 1971 and also the improved safety of the cars made sure that Bandini was the last one to die there.
Covered cockpit. The opposite of F1, NASCAR probably has the safest cars racing. It’s a giant roll cage. Crashing is part of the race. It’s legalized road rage. F1 drivers don’t want covered cockpits for their own reasons -quick exits, nostalgia, debris, looks, etc. They should have Lexan windscreens on front and sides. I know they tested them, but look at the debris/wheel injuries, there’s got to be a quick release to make it feasible
It's a great idea, but they are extremely ugly in the current state. They also cause issues with drivers upside down and trying to escape the car. This is in no way an endorsement against it, however, I firmly believe an aeroscreen similar to those seen in IndyCar would be a much better option. Another safety improvement would be to eliminate armco barriers entirely and replace them with SAFER barriers. This would have prevented Grosjean's incident entirely.
@@MrJr1976 realy? the skeleton of an aeroscreen is very similar to the halo and in the last indy race the screen fogged up so the drive could not see good. I think for indy car it makes sense because they encounter small parts at higher speeds
Roger Williamson is one of the most tragic losses in motorsport history. Imagine seeing your friend die right infront of your eyes knowing you can't help him despite how hard you try.
This video actually highlights the importance of seat belts as well as survival cells and carbon fibre that when used together with the halo makes the driver much safer.
Same thing with the body material used. A Mercedes Benz at the 1955 24 Hrs of Le Mans flew straight into the stands killing almost 80 innocent lives, some of which were burned from the highly flammable magnesium body of the car
Thank you for including Maria de Vilotta into the list :) Most people or lists didnt cover her story or the fact, that the Halo would have saved her too. well done research
That accident was very unfortunate and also horrifying. I am sure that the halo would have saved her injuries. I don't think she could have been going 'that' fast, (in relation to other accidents where drivers have walked away.)
One of the first thoughts that went through my mind when I saw Romain Grosjean's crash at Bahrain in 2020, was that if the Halo hadn't been mandated, we'd likely have seen a Helmut Koinigg-like crash. In 2020. That would've been the end of the sport right there.
Now they need to do the walls he was almost pinned in the car because of outdated ARMCO. It pathetic that the so called most modern and hi tech racing series used technology from 70 years ago to keep cars in the track.
well with heavy cars you will always have problems.. they can pierce guardrails whereas a 600 kg would have bounced off harmlessly, and you have more risk of cars bouncing back on the track before depleting inertia.. like hubert. in a light car the halo wouldn't even have been needed for the grosjean crash.
No I think it would of just highlighted another area that needed safety improvement, Dont forget the halo came about mainly because of the horror after jules Bianchis incident, I think that armco need to be designing a different style safety barrier that doesn't allow for a car to penatrate it like his did.
@@zacharyradford5552 Chain Bear made a video about all the barriers used in F1 couple of years ago and described armco as well. The problem with this type of barrier occurs when they're not properly attached and that's why for example Cevert or Koinning had died. On the other hand, with current heavy and fast F1 cars, they will probably pierce these barriers very easily (to be honest, I really don't know as I am not even a slightly experienced physicist).
@@danipunto-e-basta8714 uhhhh, didn't Koinigg just drive straight through an armco barrier in a 575kg car and get decapitated? Also 2020 cars were only 746kg so it's not like that's massive increase to weight, they've gotten bigger for sure but materials have also gotten way lighter.
Make a video like this but without fatalities, and instead just major crashes that did not kill the driver, Like Niki Lauda at the Nurburgring, but like, pretend he's in a F1 2022 car, would that prevent the car from going into flames? That would be a really good video idea.
Well, if you take that accident and “replace” the 312T with F1-75, then the outcome of that accident is completely different- there wouldn’t be any fire, Niki wouldn’t suffer from any sort of injuries. Niki would walk out on his own out of the car.
@@ThatSB Sorry, I wrote the comment badly, I meant hypothetically if niki lauda was in a modern f1 car and he was driving the Nordschleife and crashed at the same corner, and his car burst into flames, would he be able to get out or no?
Yes, and that's how the introduction of safety procedures (unfortunately) works. Enough people have to die because of the lack of them for them to be created/introduced. On the other hand you might view it in the positive light that we are learning from mistakes and are trying to make sure that no death happens more than once.
It’s a shame how no matter how safe the cars are someone will still die, unfortunately the safest car we could probably make is a car without and engine
@@ERTChimpanzeethe whole point of formula 1 is that it’s meant to be fast. Reducing the speed lowers the skill ceiling of the sport & I guarantee all drivers would be against it.
@@mrfadesba it's not particularly horrific in my opinion-that was when the marshall was hurtling in the air- but rather disconcerting I suppose, as it shows the Shadow moving at speed, but with the drivers head pointing downwards (there's a slightly later picture before the car hits the Ligier and Pryce seems almost headless), probably dripping with blood by that point.
No it wouldn’t have saved senna at all the suspension wasn’t a fatal injury the basilar skull fracture is what killed him it caused a haemorrhage in the artery that runs to your ear which almost always happens with a basilar and he essentially drowned in his own blood
@@MrDannyboyhall but the halo could have prevented the suspension from hitting his head and pushing him back to the seat, making the impact be stronger due to not being prepared for the crash, because from what I know, that was the reason why he got the skull fracture
If I'm not mistaken, I think it was Leclerc, Jules Bianchi's godson who was the first one protected by the halo in a crash, at the Belgian GP in 2018. Then we had Grosjean in 2020, Hamilton in 2021, and Zhou in 2022.
Tom Pryce was the first one I thought of when thinking about this subject. It was certainly the fire extinguisher that killed him. Sadly wouldn't have been enough for the Marshall though.
I hadn't heard about that until today.. And saw the video.. I just have to wonder how that situation could've happened. How did no one do anything to prevent it?
@@tangentfox4677 Sadly, it was a case of a young, inexperienced Marshall not taking adequate care when crossing the track. Benefit of hindsight says that fire equipment on the other side could have saved them both but it appeared there was little Pryce could do to avoid it
@@denzil_red one other thing, the bit of track that led up to that part was a bit of a hill so from a distance you couldn’t see any cars coming along so that’s why they both ran along, unfortunately we know what happened next
@@denzil_red You blame the young marshal, but he was following an older experienced marshal who also chose to run across a dangerous track and narrowly avoided being killed himself.
@@MrSniperfox29 I dont blame anybody. I was asked how it occurred and that was the result of the investigation. It certainly wasn't the drivers error was it?
In several of those crashes, especially those before the 1980's, the structure of the car where the Halo could be attached would have crumbled or got crushed in the impact, nullifying any protection that the Halo could have provided.
A halo would have caused other issues and added as many fatalities to the list as it removed, if not more. 1) In the event of drivers being thrown from their cars, a halo may have resulted in the driver striking the halo and being killed, as opposed to being flung clear but potentially surviving - For example, Hans Hermann's famous barrel roll at AVUS in 1959 where he was thrown from the car but walked away. 2) In the event of fire, a halo would have made extraction harder, if not impossible - Lauda wouldn't have survived Nurburgring 1976, and who knows how Berger's crash at Imola, Jos Verstappen's pit lane fire at Hockeheim, or Diniz's fire in Argentina would have been affected by a halo. You could also probably apply this to the majority of fires before 1980 or so, given there wasn't the extraction tests or the same standards of fireproof overalls - it's easy to imagine a driver being severely burned and/or killed in an accident where they otherwise escaped with only minor burns in a non-halo car. Also, if we add a halo to the early Indy 500 races that were part of the world championship, would these have remained on the cars after the Indy 500 was removed from the world championship? If so, how would this have affected single seater series in the US going forwards? Maybe Dan Wheldon and definitely Justin Wilson would have survived their accidents, but how many drivers would have been saved in the earlier years, and how many 'new' fatalities would have occurred as a result of a halo? For instance: - Danny Ongais' Indy 500 crash in 1981 is an example of a crash where a halo potentially traps or crushes the driver, causing further injury or death - Given how close Alex Zanardi was to death in 2001, would the extra few seconds needed to extract him from a car with a halo ultimately been the difference between life and death? - What about the invisible methanol fires that you used to see in the past? What complications would have arisen from the extra time taken to escape the car, and teams not properly extinguish an invisible fire inside the cockpit? (especially if there was an aero screen instead of a halo) 3) You mentioned crumbling or crushing of the halo, and Jackie Stewart's 1966 Spa crash is an example of that which deserves an entire section of its own. If Stewart was crushed by a halo and killed at Spa in 1966 in our hypothetical scenario, what would the knock-on effect have been for driver safety and the sport as a whole going forwards? a) Do the GPDA still boycott the 1969 Belgian Grand Prix, and how long would the old Spa-Francorchamps layout have been allowed to stay on the calendar? b) Would the GPDA have disbanded before 1982, and would it have been as impactful without Stewart? c) Would the Armco problems seen at Watkins Glen and Montjuic Park have been tolerated by drivers, especially if those accidents have better outcomes due to a halo? d) Would we have been racing at the Nordschleife beyond 1976? e) Would Sid Watkins have been accepted in the paddock in 1978? f) If the dangers of 60s and 70s F1 had persisted into the early 80s and the beginning of the turbo era, would this have prevented Bernie Ecclestone turning F1 into the global commercial success that it has since become? 80s turbo cars with 60s/70s safety when the series was establishing itself on TV may have killed F1 altogether. g) Given Senna and Schumacher were both pay drivers (albeit extremely talented), would the previous issues have made F1 so much less marketable that they lacked funding to ever reach F1? If F1 hadn't grown as it did in the Senna/Prost/Piquet/Mansell era, would Lewis Hamilton have ever got in a go kart, or had backing from McLaren during his junior career? h) No Jackie Stewart means no Stewart Grand Prix, which means no sale of the team to Jaguar and no Red Bull Racing as we know them today. Does Red Bull start a team from scratch instead, would Minardi have become Red Bull instead of becoming Toro Rosso, or would Red Bull have decided against entering the sport altogether? What happens to the entire Red Bull junior program as a result? Does Vettel simply win 4 world championships in a Red Bull team based in Faenza instead of Milton Keynes, or does he never even make it to F1? i) Without Jackie Stewart, does the Tyrrell team have the same success? If not, it likely puts the team out of business long before 1998, meaning no BAR takeover, no Honda, no Brawn and no Mercedes as we know them today. While it's possible that another driver would have taken the role of Stewart in the crusade for driver safety, and his death wouldn't have impacted the future of the sport to the extent above, it's still interesting to think about just how different the sport would have been. You could certainly make an argument that if Jackie Stewart was killed at Spa in 1966, the last FOURTEEN Drivers' Championships would have been won by somebody else.
@@Evilpengwinz78 Wow, what a brilliant and fascinating post, thank you. I love this sort of discussion - many can't stand it for some reason - but how one thing like Jackie's incredible 1966 survival has so many consequences is fascinating I think. If Graham Hill hadn't chosen to stop to help, and then got help from another driver and spectators(!), Jackie would have had virtually no hope, so Graham deserves huge credit for modern F1 too!! Of course the modern halo is both fantastically strong and (I understand) easily removeable if necessary, but I fully appreciate that one can't, even in a theoretical exercise, 'impose' a 2022 halo on old cars! I love F1 history, and will be bothered, I suppose, for the rest of my life by the sheer bad luck and trivial seeming mistakes which killed so many brilliantly gifted drivers, and by how easily they could have been avoided. (Some would call it fate - Pedro Rodriguez was a fatalist, fanatically so it seems, hence many hugely risky drives in dodgy cars - like the one which killed him in 1971. This of course is a huge separate philosophical question! ) For example - Why did Jim Clark drive in Hockenheim not Brands Hatch where he was expected to be? Various vague reasons have been suggested, I reckon though he 'just chose to', which killed him. Why didn't Rindt fix his belts properly? Some said fear of fire, I reckon he was just uncomfortable and worried about damaging his...er...jewels in a big impact. And, just like that, it killed him. Why did Bruce Mclaren rush to get more laps in before lunch, somehow resulting in someone not fixing the back bodywork down properly, which killed him? (There's also the horrendous bad luck of hitting the only obstruction anywhere near when he lost control.) Why didn't Cevert skip the US GP to make absolutely sure his ankles were 100% right after his huge crash in Canada? Nobody knows why he crashed even now, his ankles fractionally slowing his reactions when pushing for pole cannot be discounted - he only brushed the right barrier before fatally losing control. And, away from the track, why on earth didn't Graham Hill divert and land his plane in Luton instead of risking a dodgy landing in fog in Elstree. Simply to avoid having to get taxis to get to their cars it seems - unbelievable.
@@ysgol3 To give an answer to the first question, the reason Clark attended the Deutschland Trophäe at Hockenheim in '68 rather than the BOAC 500 at Brands was primarily due to contractual obligations with the tyre manufacturer Firestone, but was also due to Clark having already agreed to race for Colin Chapman, who was fielding the Lotus 48s and 41Cs in Baden-Württemberg as apposed to Ford, who were fielding GT40s and the F3Ls in Kent. Although the notion of Clark "just choosing to" race at Hockenheim is technically correct due to him "choosing" to race for Chapman as opposed to Ford, the decision was also influenced by Clark's Firestone contract.
@@adamthea3766 Hi, thank you for your kind response. You'll know that Clark was reported as going to appear at Brands, his name was even in the programme I believe. If he'd have insisted, I'm sure he'd have gone there not Hockenheim. But, for some reason, he didn't, and he hated Hockenheim, he probably knew before he arrived bout its horrendous dangerousness. Jackie Stewart has said that by the time of his death Jimmy was standing up to Chapman's 'orders' more and more, it would have been very interesting to see where that new attitude went. BTW, one of the most disgusting things I've ever read is that when Chapman arrived at Hockenheim following the crash the first thing he did was march up to poor Dave Sims, Jim's mechanic, and say 'What the hell have you done?'.
This may not be especially true if we count 1950's Indy roadsters, as in the 1950's the Indianapolis 500 was part of the Formula 1 season. Most teams ran Kurtis roadsters, which were heavy and had a tendency to roll over in high-speed crashes. The drivers often died because their exposed head was crushed, as was often the case in sprint car racing. Modern sprint cars are similar to how they were in the 1950's but with massive halo-like external roll cages fully enclosing the driver. As the Indianapolis 500 was largely a contest of engineering at the time, it's no surprise that some big strides in safety technology have come from it. In 1956 Ray Crawford survived a head-on collision because of his seatbelt and other teams quickly added seatbelts to their cars in response. In 1963, Junior Johnson ran a Kurtis-Kraft roadster with what you could now call a Halo, it was an exposed roll cage over the driver's head and through the whole chassis.
It was officially stated that Jules had passed under the crane and his head did not strike the side of the crane. He died from the extreme forces as a result of the car colliding with things it's not designed to, namely the crane
Jules was more so a case of unbelievably bad luck, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Realistically you throw even the modern cars at that tractor at the same speed, there's a good chance the drivers are still going to be hurt bad and possibly suffer the same fate as Jules. At the very least his passing forced F1 to take another hard push at safety to improve the sport
Yeah. An issue this whole analysis seems to suffer from is assuming that injury results from foreign objects striking the driver. In the 1980s and 1990s basilar skull fractures were probably the biggest cause of death for drivers in top divisions. This injury is a product of the body's own movement when brought to a sudden stop. The halo wouldn't have saved Senna just as the windshield did not save Earnhardt. The HANS device, which limit the independents movement of the head, is the best tool for preventing that injury. However, a sudden stop can still cause horrific injuries, especially brain injuries. It seems that Bianchi essentially struck the crane with the side of his role hoop, not his head, and the force of the sudden stop, not direct intrusion, caused a significant amount of the trauma.
The grosjean crash fills me with such an appreciation for how far safety has come in modern racing. Obviously it’s not safe, but him surviving that is a culmination of every safety improvement made because of the deaths of hundreds or maybe thousands of people. Which is bittersweet
Correction on Bianchi's crash: H̶i̶s̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶m̶e̶t̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶a̶c̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶r̶a̶n̶e̶. What killed him was the sudden stop when the roll-bar caught the crane as it was sheered away, resulting in a Diffuse axonal injury. The FIA themselves concluded that the HALO would have done nothing to save Bianchi's life, as the fatal injury to his brain was caused by sudden deceleration. Edit: Upon further research into this myself the FIA said Bianchi's helmet did contact the crane, though the HALO would have still not saved him.
Like Justin Wilson's death at Pocono in the Indy Car series, the driver's head doesn't have to take the direct impact to kill them. A DAI is more akin to a super massive concussion, which would come from the snap of the role hoop catching the crane. If his helmet had hit the crane directly, it would have been more likely a skull fracture or other direct injury.
@@stephenbritton9297 The difference between Wilson and Bianchi is that Wilson did suffer a direct hit to the head from the nose cone of Sage Karam's car. The Aeroscreen would have saved Justin Wilson's life.
The reality is it’s shocking few that would have been saved by the HALO. Seat belts, helmets and better fire procedures and at track health care have individually saved more lives. F1 got damn lucky that Grosjean didn’t get pinned because of the ARMCO would have had death that from fire that hasn’t happened in about 50 years.
Glad you included Maria de Villota. She is too often overlooked. Great video about a sad subject. I remember seeing most of them from 1974 onwards and they're still shocking.
It was a major factor in saving Zhou. The roll bar was completely grind down to the point where it didn't reach over the Halo anymore. The Halo did prevent Zhous head from beeing dragged over the concrete for several seconds. He would have had severe head injuries at the very least.
Hi, Jackie is amazing, but these things are so complicated. In the 1969 US GP Graham Hill was wearing belts, had a problem with the car and undid them to jump out to push start it. When he got back in, the belts were such that he himself couldn't do them up, so he headed for the pits to get the car checked. On the way a tyre burst, the car somersaulted, and the now unbelted Graham was thrown out through the front, breaking his legs by both knees being 'snapped back' by the front of the car as it happened. Horrendous of course, but he survived and came back and won again (no GP wins though). Graham and others said, unanimously I believe, that if he'd been belted in he'd have been torn to pieces like the car was as it somersaulted. There's no known film of this, there is a still photo showing the car, already practically unrecognisable as an F1 car, flying through the air with Graham already on the ground.
Jackie Stewart is a hero making a stand for driver safety at a time when it was not fashionable to do so, so many retired drivers may not have lived to see retirement without him.
I saw a programme with him where he explained that he and his wife had sat down and wrote a list of all of their friends that competed in motorsport who had died. Their were 67 names on the list.
@@chrisst8922 that is horrendous, I wouldn't think that that I have had a third of that number of workmates die while employed together over 37 years let alone over 10 or 12 years.
@@pim9089 His body was deccelerated with 92g and a speed of 124 km/h when he hit the crane. He would have survived this. But, unfortunately, the crane acted like a brake from above, as the car went under it. This led to the car being forced to the ground from the nearly 7 ton heavy crane, which unfortunately led to a 254g decceleration on Bianchi's head. I hope that Jules will not be forgotten.
No the record is 214G by Kenny Bräck on lap 57 during a IndyCar race at Texas Motor Speedway when his car was launched into the catchfence and colliding head-on at over 200 mph following a collision with another driver, The entire car was destroyed except the cockpit which was still intact with Bräck still inside, He returned to IndyCar 18 months later.
Interesting hypothesis - surprised you didn't include the HANS device - as that also had the potential to save driver's lives too - maybe you could do one on this in a futre video (if you haven't already ?)? Thanx for doing this. - well put together & researched. Nice one. Cheers. 👍😎✌
Y'know, after this video, I wanna see a video dissecting those F1 fatalities (and maybe other large/famous crashes) and comparing which modern safety features could have prevented deaths or injuries in those cases. Just a breakdown of how each modern safety feature improved safety and how exactly they work.
It amazes me how since the halo has been introduced we've had 3 maybe 4 incidents involving the head when for years without it we didn't have any. Last head injury(not concussions) besides bianchi was massa and the halo wouldn't have done squat for that.
I know i'm late but there's a detail you missed from Ricardo's death at 11:04. He wasn't killed by the fire. He died because the car flipped, and he got sent flying into the barriers, hitting them from the top with the hips. A friend from the Rodríguez family who witnessed the accident said that his body was essentially cut in half
It’s crazy how many of these would’ve just been saved by a seatbelt and it took until the 70’s for that measure to be implemented. Don’t get me wrong obviously the helmet and the other measures are huge but it’s crazy how many of those early deaths just needed a seatbelt to significantly increase the chance of survival. I’m a newer fan of F1 and learning more about the history and seeing these deaths laid out like this is crazy. Obviously I knew early F1 was extremely dangerous and everyone has heard of the big deaths like Senna but seeing the lack of any basic safety measures in the beginning is jaw dropping.
Man, you don't realise how brutal F1 is until you hear this. Its also crazy, cause most of these events have pictures or video, and... Just don't. Anyway, its impressive seeing the safety these days.
also interesting that despite all these, we still have a fatal crash, Hubert. The cockpit is designed to be hit once, if you get hit on the same side again, it won't protect you. (But I don't think that's physically possible as of now. Like carbon fiber is basically the strongest material usable for a car)
a modern car with no Halo looks so weird to me now, like how did we think it was normal for the drivers to be out there fully exposed lol But it wouldn't save Jules' life
Amazing video! However I do have a disagreement with your assessment about Jules Bianchi. Looking at the fan video... it seems like the helmet passed underneath the crane and it was the rollbar that made contact with the crane causing immediate deceleration which ended up killing him. As much as I'm a massive fan of the Halo I don't think it would've done a thing in Bianchi's fatal crash.
The fia investigated some head injuries and weather the halo would’ve made no difference, helped or hindered in the situation. For jules bianchi they came to the conclusion that it would’ve made next to no difference. The roll hoop can take a LOT more force than the halo but when you look at images of the crash the roll hoop was completely destroyed.
Honestly this is why nascar is so popular, they managed to still have those "top ten most deadly crashes" with cars flipping and rolling and shattering with panels flying everywhere and then the drivers get out "I rid not even notice I hit anything yet"
Well it’s a stupid question because you can’t stick halos on those old cars and if you could it’d be worse as it would be harder for the driver to get out, for example a burning 70s car upside down, you wouldn’t want a halo because it would prevent them from getting out, plus cars from the 50s/60s you’d be best to be thrown free from the car, so this is a pointless video past is the past
Just a note on the Ratzenberger accident: the failed part of the front wing didn't go under the car. It flew up. (Watch the replays, you can see it.) Losing half the front downforce meant the front didn't have enough grip for braking and he understeered into the wall. The impact alone probably caused the skull fracture without needing a wheel. Remember, this was in a time before HANS so Roland's head kept moving until any flex ran out, and when that happens basilar fractures happen. He never had a chance. Halo or no halo, humans can't take that sort of hits. Regarding Senna's steering column, telemetry doesn't support the claim that it snapped. Senna's car bottomed out in Tamburello after the restart, likely lifting the nose. He went *straight* out. I watched it live. I still remember the moments things went wrong. And no, halo doesn't protect you from skull fractures caused by excessive deceleration. You can only do so much to control the head, and the point between the skull and the spine will always be a weak point. You just don't stop from 300+ km/h within a couple of metres and live.
Plus Ratzenberger had been having problems with the brakes in his car on the Friday. Which was confirmed by David Brabham, his teammate, after he took Roland's car and tested the brakes himself, as he'd had more experience with those type of brakes. Maybe that problem wasn't totally rectified and combined with the front wing detaching from the car, that contributed to it?? He suffered 3 separate injuries, all serious enough that any of them would have been fatal on their own. I totally agree with your comment, very good points made in a respectful, informative and factual manner.
Interesting how: - In the 50s and 60s, the Halo was the least of most driver's troubles. Instead, most drivers died due to the lack of other safety measures that we now take for granted. - In the 70s, safety was now an important concern. Now, the Halo starts becoming a difference maker, even though there were still many other elements that were much more visible, and thus higher-priority, at the time (such as track construction in the two Watkins Glen accidents, and marshal procedures in Tom Pryce's accident). - The 80s saw the ground effect and turbo eras, which pushed speeds to levels never seen before. At this time, fatal crashes were so violent that the Halo wouldn't have been topical. Instead, other safety developments (including the end of the ground effect era) would bring a first true era of safety, that would last... until 1994. - 1994 was an insane year for Formula 1, with the outlawing of driver aids exposing the drivers to more crashes, which put on evidence many remaining safety flaws in Formula 1. Then San Marino 1994 happened... and Formula 1 changed forever. Now, more than ever, safety was the actual number 1 concern. Most of the remaining safety flaws were handled, either immediately after San Marino (such as the removal of many hazardous track locations), or over time (e.g. the reinforcement of wheel tethers in the 2000s, after a marshal was killed by a loose wheel). After that, it seemed that fatal crashes were a thing of the past, that would never ever happen again... - ...until 2014, when F1 realized that they had missed another spot. Thus, the Halo was introduced. Yet, interestingly, the hazards have been more evident now than earlier in the century, with incidents such as Antoine Hubert's fatal F2 crash in 2019, and Romain Grosjean's crash in 2020 (in which the halo almost certainly saved his life), reminding us that, no matter how much safety is developed... they're still racing cars at 200 miles per hour. There's always going to be risks, and at those speeds, lives are always on the line.
Honestly the way some of these accidents are described, it makes me wonder if a few of these guys would have still died even if they were driving a 2022-grade F1 car with proper safety equipment and marshalling.
@@racer501_sb Senna could have survived, albeit with heavy injuries. He had a basilar (is that how you spell it?) skull fracture in addition to the suspension, which probably killed him. He would've been heavily injured by the suspension and it would still have been a horrifying crash, but he would have a better chance at survival.
I disagree with your conclusion about Cevert’s accident. The Armco tore the front of the car open like a tin opener and would most likely have ripped the halo off.
Probably wouldn't of, The halo can get his by 20kg and still barely be damaged, 50 more kg and it'll be torn off, I don't think the barrier weighs 70kg.
Agree, Jackie Stewart who was one of the first on scene said his body was torn in half as the car had disintegrated. . The halo would not have saved his life.
@@Zenvitic Yes, but a car in 1973 is very different. Look at Grosjean’s Bahrain accident. What saved him from being chewed by the barrier was both the halo but also the strength of the survival cell, the latter of which remained intact. Whereas in 1973 there was no survival cell, and Cevert’s car was torn to shreds, quite literally, meaning he was (to be graphic) almost cut in half from neck to hip. The halo would have done nothing to prevent those injuries. He actually had no head injuries at all, his head never contacted the barrier as far as anyone could tell, the injuries he suffered were from the neck down and were a consequence of the entire front half of the car being cut to ribbons.
I red the sad Hulme history trying to save Revson many years ago, when drivers demanded more security measures. Hulme told he was back at the hotel, washing Revson's blood and feeling angry and powerless, thinking of so many fellow drivers lost, he said he was tired of living the same horrible experience again and again.
We need to talk about implementing SAFER barriers and outlawing armco barriers entirely. Armco barriers fold down if a heavy car is thrust into them creating a ramp. These barriers also let low-slung formula-style cars slide underneath them posing a danger to drivers.
Armco is fine if it is installed properly the problem is a lot of tracks it isn’t installed properly I do agree with the safer barriers I’ve seen people hit them at Indianapolis and they are amazing how they absorb impacts
@@MrDannyboyhall I've never seen armco barriers NOT either make the accident worse or catapult the car. Remember the incident that killed a marshal at brands hatch?
@@MrJr1976 Armco does it’s job just fine like I said if installed properly it’s old tech now obviously but I’ve seen Armco take some massive hits and held up perfectly of course safer barriers are a much better option as the dissipate energy very well but Armco is not unsafe if done properly
@@MrDannyboyhall I've rarely seen armco be installed safely. It's just a massacre every time. On top of that, the SAFER barrier is effective even when not installed 100% correctly. So it's more idiot proof. If armco HAS to be installed 100% correctly to work, then there's already a point of failure
Caught a couple erroneous pictures: The supposed snap of Luigi Musso's car is actually the wreckage of Alphonso de Portago's Ferrari sports car, after the crash in the 1957 Mille Miglia; The burning hulk shown during the Alan Stacey clip is Willy Mairesse's Ferrari from his 1962 shunt at Spa. The correct pix do exist, but they are very rare and, true, do not look much different.
The day Jules Bianchi had his crash was the hardest gp I’ve ever had to watch seeing the shock in every driver and the reaction too it was very hard to watch
since Cevert's car was split in half and tangled, and he was shredded by the armco, maybe the halo would have just been one extra piece of car to cut before freeing the wrecked car at the end of the session. great video btw, very good arguments!!
that last one in a way hurt the most to hear, when growing up i was aspiring to be the greatest at everything i do but always believed i was bad at things due to lack of good equipment, then to hear that this guy at Monaco got 9th place overtaking cars much quicker than his own through nothing but pure talent really just stuck with me, then to watch this same guy about 4 - 6 months later have a massive accident and die due to it, which could of been prevented, harsh man, RIP Jules
I want to add that this guy is misinformed. Its has been clearly stated by the developers of the HALO that it would NOT have saved bianchi. Rather the conditions around the accident; him going off while a crane is on track is what should have been prevented.
Just something I caught: the track at which Tom Pryce and Frederik Jansen van Vuuren were killed was at Kyalami Circuit, rather than Prince George, which hadn’t been used since 1966.
I realize Jim Clark’s death was an F2 race and the Halo would not have saved him due to the car disintegrating on impact with a tree. He would have possibly survived in a modern F1 car.
Great Video! But I just wanna clear up some widespread misconceptions about the halo and Jules. The program for better head protection was launched prior to either Marussia crash in 2011. The deciding factors to start the program were the death of Henry Surtees and Dan Wheldon and also Massas hit in Hungary 09. It was accelerated after the death of Biancchi, de Villotta and Justin Willson. In the aftermath of Bianchi's crash, the VSC was introduced to avoid high speeds when marshalls or safety/recovery vehicles are on track. When the Halo was introduced, the FIA held a press conference explaining the reasoning of the halo. They had ran multiple simulations for dozens of crashes in F1 and other series over the last 25 years. (th-cam.com/video/AYkGjUHstKY/w-d-xo.html) Regarding Jules crash. The speed mentioned int the Video was the speed the telemetry initially reported. The problem with the Data was the flawed brake by wire system Marussia had at the time which overrode driver input, hindering Jules braking. The FIA stated a speed of 210kph (around 125 mph) in their report and a deceleration of 254g or 2.490 m/s. The halo would have not saved Jules Biancchi as the force was too high for the halo. Still good research in the Video, but a major part of the report only was reported in German media for some reason. I also saw a lot of comments wondering how a slow speed (200kph still slow for 254g) can cause high speed, so the physics behind it. G force is a measurement of acceleration, with the unit g being the earths gravitational pull of ~10m/s. To calculated acceleration (deceleration) we can take the velocity difference (delta v) and divide it by the time it took to change this speed(t). In a formula, this is a= (delta)v / t. We get a very high number for the acceleration by either increasing the velocity difference over the same time, or we shorten the time for the same speed. And that's the way we get a high g force with a low speed.
nice explanation. Noone survives a 200G+ deceleration. F.e. you have a good chance of death hitting a wall head on at 60 km/h, even though you may not get a single scratch. Your organs basically "fall off" due to the momentum
Great comments, I was just wondering if you took into account that the crane would of been impacted before the area where the halo would of been fixed causing the crane to be on a upwards and forwards trajectory before the halo would of received any forces applied to it, also the angle of the halo and the crane would of been both on a complimentary slant causing the accident forces to be received in a way that is surely easier on the halo? Did you factor any of this in? I'm no scientist, I'm just interested.
@@davidmartin565 No, while technically a factor, when you work with these kinds of speeds and the enormous weight of the crane, little energy go into displacing the crane instead of crushing the body of the car. Especially if you consider he drove under the crane and he halo would pretty much be the first piece of bodywork to hit the crane anyway.
@@williamvanderscheer4327 It also doesn't take into account the impact dynamics would of been dramatically changed if the halo would of been involved, the impact being received by the halo first would of acted on the crane and eliminated the impact to his helmet. Even if the halo failed if you look at the impact angle and how the car and crane reacted to the impact the forces taken by the halo and it's shape surely would of made the blow less violent than it was. I'm asking you not telling you what do you think? I just can't help but think that the halo would of dramatically changed the impact the numbers are often quoted as if he hit a fixed crane head on and at a square angle, but it wasn't, the halo gets dismissed because of the forces but are they seen the same? The g force of the rollbar taking most of the impact after he received the glancing blow to the helmet would not of been the same number if the halo would of been there to do the job it was designed for, the slope of the bottom of the crane even lends more favor to the point, what do you think?
Morbid as it sounds, but part of the appeal of F1 was the risk - daring bravery at incomprehensible speeds. I appreciate you can't have people killing themselves on TV, however.
Apparently Colin Chapman said to Rindt that if he took the wing off of his Lotus, he would end up crashing. They had a slightly volatile relationship at times and Rindt had voiced his displeasure about the safety of the cars he was expected to drive in the past. It didn’t help that Chapman wouldn't attempt to have a close relationship with Rindt. He said he couldn't let himself become close friends with any of his drivers ever again, after the death of Jim Clark.
I do question how the halo could stop Bianchi from impacting the crane when the rollbar was snapped clean off. That sort of force would surely buckle the halo as well, wouldn't it? Not to discredit the halo, it has ALREADY saved several lives, but it seems unlikely that it'd work
True, but the halo doesn't just protect the head, it protects against breaching of the cockpit. His slicing injury ran from his shoulder area down his body, hence the 'cut in half' story, and the halo could (only speculation of course!) have saved his body from being butchered by the barrier by stopping the barrier reaching it.
Some of the rationales dont make much sense, some are ambiguous - for example - Alan Stacey - theres a possibility that whatever hit Stacey in the face, could still happen with a Halo, especially if its small enough like a bird, a bird could still fit through the gaps of the Halo, so you cant categorically say the Halo would have saved his life.
Outstanding video, respectfully done. Thank you. I was at the 1973 Dutch Grand Prix. To think they didn’t stop the race is hard to grasp. Knowing the halo could have saved Cevert causes reflection. Also remember watching the Bandini accident on Wide World of Sports. Our early heroes gave so much. As well as the innocent spectators. 🙏🏻 Again, thanks for your hard work on this. Great stuff.
Met Cevert at Mosport later that year at the Canadian Grand Prix. Went to Watkins Glen two weeks later for the US GP. As a kid of 11, the death of my hero broke my heart. Koenigg's death the following year was inexcusable.
@@jimeditorial Very cool you met Francois. He was special and sorry you had to experience that. 🥲 I spent the whole summer there. Stewart was my hero. Went to Monaco, French, British and Dutch Grand Prix plus LeMans. Still today, 1973 would be the year I would pick to go back to. To start with Monaco was other worldly. I watched it at Mirabeau. Will never forget the cars coming down the hill. The smell was unforgettable. That was the first year for the swimming pool too. Magical times of joy and heartbreak. We were blessed to see it. 😇🏎🏁
@@terrymusch9581 Cevert was remarkably generous with his time for a star struck kid....my father arranged special passes for the pits and I spent hours there..theTyrell mechanics were rebuilding the gearbox on both Cevert's and Stewart's cars and Cevert was standing by to jump into the cockpit to test the gear change so he had time to talk to me. In the paddock he had a gaggle of young women around him, something I didn't yet understand at 11 years old. But his death was a realization that life does indeed come to an end.....
@@jimeditorial What an amazing memory you have. I remember having his Biography “Contract with Death” that he predicted he would die at 30. I will always remember him at that final scene of The Quick and the Dead with him waving goodbye. I am still grieving him 50 years later. I now feel your memories are mine too. We were blessed to be in their presence. 🙏🏻🏎🏁
Excellent report, even if it is hard to determine the exact outcome on some accidents. Example, the Halo would have prevented Senna's tire from hitting him on the head..., but the lack of the Hans device might have killed him anyways at the speed he hit the wall. We will never know.
I hated the look of it but I completely understood how it would help, and since it works so well in IndyCar with their duel windscreen halo option then it would work and F1 just as
Halo would NOT have saved Ronald Ratzenberger life, but Hans would have saved him. The cause of his death was that because of the extreme g forces of this specific crash, and as the head was not strapped on, like it is happening today with Halo, the extreme movement of the head broke the base of the skull. The point where the skull is connected with the spine. So, Halo whould not have saved him, but Hans would.
It is not so certain that the HANS device would have saved Roland Ratzenberger since he also had a ruptured aorta as a result of the sudden deceleration of the impact.
I feel it would be more fitting if you would say “could have saved their life” instead of “would have saved their live” I understand it’s your opinion as well as the fact that the HALO would have most likely saved a drivers life, but adding a HALO doesn’t necessarily mean they will survive the accident. This is considering other factors that the HALO could not protect a driver.
I would argue Senna's death would not have been avoidable. Firstly, going off of photos of where his helmet was physically struck, I think even if the HALO had been in place, the suspension would have just missed the structure of the HALO and hit Senna anyway. The position of where the puncture on his helmet is strongly suggests it would have entered the cockpit from the right side, probably at the one o'clock position, an area that the HALO does not actually cover. Considering he hit the wall right-front wheel first, I think it is very likely the suspension bits would have entered the cockpit regardless if the HALO was there or not. The windscreen that Indycar uses would have prevented the suspension from entering the cockpit (or at least would have prevented it from puncturing Senna's helmet) ,but once again I think even if that was the case he still would have died from the sheer forces of the impact. Secondly, and more crucially, an autopsy of Senna found that he had suffered very serious brain injuries, with medical reports indicating the impact with the wall would have equivalent to falling 30 meters and landing directly on his head. Now while an argument could be made that despite all this that the death was caused by the suspension ,I would like to turn the attention to NASCAR. Between 2000 and 2001, four different NASCAR drivers were killed in an accident. The first one occurred on May 12, 2000. While practicing for the Busch 2000 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Adam Petty, aged just 19 suffered a stuck throttle approaching turn three. He struck the wall nearly head on, and was killed almost instantly by a basilar skull fracture. The next death occurred just eight weeks later. On July 7, 2000, Kenny Irwin Jr., aged 30, was practicing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway when his throttle was hung wide open as he entered the third turn, in manner virtually identical to Adam Petty's crash. The car smashed virtually head-on into the wall, flipped onto its side, skidded for some time before eventually rolling over and coming to a stop on its roof. HIs cause of death was a basilar skull fracture, with many believing the impact had effectively killed him instantly. The third death happened on February 15, 2001. On the final lap of the Daytona 500, Dale Earnhardt lost control after a small tap from a competitor. He smashed head-on into the turn four wall, and collected another car in the process. While Dale did suffer a basilar skull fracture, it's not clear if this is a result of him hitting the wall, with some arguing that he had actually died due to extreme head and chest injuries that resulted from his seatbelts failing in the accident. Dale was 51. The fourth and final death occurred on October 13, 2001. During a Craftsman truck series race (the O'Reilly 400 at Texas Motor Speedway), Tony Roper, aged 35, was battling for position when he made contact with another truck. This caused his truck to make a hard right turn, colliding virtually head on into the concrete wall. Unresponsive, he was extracted from the car, and was pronounced dead the following day, having never regained consciousness. While initially diagnosed with s severe neck injury that was preventing blood flow to his brain, an autopsy found his actual cause of death to be the result of a basilar skull fracture. The bottom line is this: hitting a concrete wall at the speeds that Senna did leads me to strongly believe that, even if by some miracle all the suspension components had missed his head, he still would have hit the wall hard enough to result in a basilar skull fracture, and this almost certainly would have killed him. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
The FIA themselves have stated that the halo would not have been likely to be sufficient to protect Bianchi, as it likely would have failed under the impact forces and breached the cockpit. It's simply not designed for these kinds of forces. Its primary purpose is to deflect debris, such as tyres, not several tons of metal machinery. So, I don't think it's reasonable to conclude it definitely would have saved him, though it is possible it would have significantly reduced the forces he experienced.
Well thankfully he would not have felt anything. Often the more machanicly violent the death the less they feel. I would definitely prefer that to burning to death
So what I have learned from this video
- mandatory Seatbelts and helmets have been the most significant rules changes in terms of safety
- Secondary causes of death for drivers are usually due to fire, so extinguishers, better fuel tanks, and fire proof overalls have made a big difference
- Spectator fatalities in F1 were surprisingly common, and in hindsight it was pretty obvious to keep them away from the track
- F1 drivers commonly suffered leg injuries from crashes due to the lack of a safety cell, and because their legs would go past the front wheels in the cockpit
- The Dale Earnhardt device (HANS device) prevents neck injuries due to massive deceleration
You need to realize people didnt want to be out of harms way. It was part of the experience
That's what I reckon would have gone 50/50 on Senna.
The HANS device was to protect the neck yes but more so to stop the whiplash effect which caused basilar skull fractures exactly what killed Dale and senna and Roland too
@@MrDannyboyhall senna was killed by pieces of the car literally going through his skull. There was no Hans device that was going to save him. Look at the pool of blood that rapidly expands from him. Imagine getting an ice pick through the eye into your skull
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It's fair to say even if the halo would have only saved *one* life, that's still worth it
It would probably have taken some lives as well, Niki Lauda for example. He couldn't unbuckle and with a halo it would be more difficult to help him in the car.
Hear here!
@@jasperoussoren2754 seatbelts can kill you, doesnt mean you dont use them. halos help more than not and save lives.
First one it saved was Charles LeClerc at Spa.
While I appreciate and agree with the sentiment, it implies that safety is the number 1 priority, and that's simply not true at all.
They're shoulder to shoulder doing 200mph in open wheeled cars with a helmet and a crossbar to keep them safe... It's ridiculous. The fans, the drivers and everyone else involved, we're all ridiculous.
Since Grosjean's crash at Bahrain, I haven't seen anyone question the legitimacy of the halo, and I doubt I ever will. Without question the halo saved Roman from decapitation that day.
Most people didn't,. the most common complaint was because of halo supporters claiming every single accident in the history of F1 would have 100% been avoided with halo, which does get a bit annoying.
Yep I hated the halo and was against it I still hate the look of it but i do like the fact that it has already saved drivers and you won’t hear me speak out against it ever again
@@MrDannyboyhall I agree, however it's now reaching the point where every single accident is met with "OMG halo saved his life" even though there have been comparable accidents in the past where the drivers were not injured.
I'm glad it's there, but the supporters need to realise it's not the miracle cure to everything.
@@MrDannyboyhall driverS?
@@MrSniperfox29 true
As of today we can add Guanyou Zhou to the list of drivers saved by the halo. Absolutely terrifying accident.
And the Hauger - Nissany accident at Silverstone 22, and the Verstappen - Hamilton accident at Monza 21.
@@Snarl616 nisanny shouldnt be in F2 he came across hauger and gave hauger a puncture but the sausage kurb should be there either
@@degradedanimationandgaming6722 I'm talking about the accident in itself. nobody cares about how do you like the drivers or the kerb.
@@Snarl616 ok
4 out of 20 drivers would have died due to being tall. The roll hoop needs to be investigated.
Halo saved Zhou on July 3, 2022 at Silverstone.
It saved Hamilton on Sept 12, 2021 at Monza.
It saved Grosjean on November 29, 2020 at Bahrain.
And it saved Leclerc on August 26, 2018 at Spa.
And that is just in the short time I've been following Formula 1.
It doesn't matter what safety features we've got. I can only cheer for it's development. I'm also always hype for how they come about. It's magnificent to see all of the research that goes into it.
@@Maxxwell-07 Even if it saves one life it's worth it.
@@jamieleslie7518 hope you are trolling.
you clearly have zero common sense.
@@jamieleslie7518 just take a look at the grosjean accident you ignorant twat.
no way in hell he survives that without the halo.
anyone saying anything else lives in wonderland.
@Jamie Leslie 4 deaths in 5 years would be an unprecedented rate, but look at the accidents.
Zhou would have died for sure, his head would have dragged because the roll hoop was destroyed.
Hamilton would have had contact on the top of his head. Cant say for sure if it would have been fatal, but a major head/neck injury.
Grosjean would have been decapitated without the halo. The halo bent the fence up and away from his head.
And just like Hamilton, Leclerc would have had contact on his head.
The ammount of spectators death is honestly staggering. I'd assume you would realize that sitting right beside the race track isn't exactly the safest of options
Yeah we probably shouldn’t but that view of the track is unbeatable
Yeah. Before the Le Mans disaster the worst ever motor racing accident was at Monza in 1927, where 26 spectators were killed after a Bugatti plowed into the crowd on the main straight.
Nahh man, look at old group B footage or even how spectators in cycling act, sporting events give people brainworms, apparently.
there's nothing like being close, really close to the track. the point is that you must know the risk, and if it happens no one must complain. the sport must not change because something possible happened to someone who has chosen to be there.
@@PSspecialist it's not the sport that enjoys the popularity, it's the show that does. your flaw is perspective. if you look at the "tobacco and alcohol brand" era, the money involved in the SPORT were huge, for the era, they were even racing in the eastern block during the cold war... and that was almost always WITHOUT the huge tv support. you can tell by just looking at the varying quality of tv coverages.
it's not that I don't care, i just think risk is the main pillar of motorracing. as JVilleneuve said when the marshall died at Melbourne to the "how to prevent this kind of things?" question... "you should stop racing".
I wouldn't say "Would have saved" rather "Could have saved". Anyways. Great video. Awesome research you did on this.
Actually that's a more fair point, there is no way of actually knowing, but anyone who tries to claim it WOULD have is lying.
@@MrSniperfox29 I'm starting to get tired of HALO lovers claiming it was the cure all for all accidents in the sport. Wonder what they will say if someone dies from an accident totally unrelated to the device...
@@largol33t1 I don't think anyone claims its the cure for every accident
@@largol33t1 lmao “HALO lovers” is such a weird way to put it. It’s like saying “seatbelt lovers” or “first aid kit lovers”, or for any other device that may aid in saving someone’s life, while not single-handedly preventing every theoretical accident
I agree but I also think there is no way of knowing if the Halo would not have helped. for all we know it actually could have resulted in a less serious injury in some of the earlier crashes where there were no seat belts. Not likely but possibly
It’s incredible how many people had to die before they finally enforced seatbelts
For many years, it was more desireable to be thrown clear from the car than stay in it. Really.
@@JeffSherlock no, they THOUGHT it was.
Yes there was so many deaths in the old days but when you look at the cars and safety precautions it’s a miracle that everyone didn’t die.
They knew the risks. If someone is too chicken then they shouldn't race at all.
Drivers were more skilled thats what it was, if you put a modern driver in the car there is no way they would survive, F1 drivers from 50-80 were a different breed
@@ERTChimpanzee Perez actual said that it showed the danger they go in to
Helmut Koinigg's crash is just so terrifying, imagine how the marshalls felt when they saw his body without a head and the head laying in the middle of the track.
There is a story of a marshall finding his helmet. He picked it up and wondered why it was so heavy. I'm sure you can guess what he found inside.
@@steph30777 🙏 That is just horrifying to even think
I don't buy these race car drivers are doing it for our entertainment anymore than people climb Everest for our entertainment.
@@pokoknya or Tony Renna.
@@Tixio_T ever heard of the Tony Renna Indianapolis test session crash?
Notice how Monaco is the least featured track here. Probably because of the low average lap speeds
And that low speed is what allows for there to be the small amounts of run off that there is at Monaco. Because of the shear amount of slow corners.
And to make things worse, Jeddah and Miami had less run off than Monaco does.
If they want to make racing safer, we have the technology to slow the crash replays down to 0.25 to see how it could have been prevented and just slow these guys down to 35 mph.
There were four deaths in Monaco between 1948 and 1967, the only F1 driver to die at Monaco was Lorenzo Bandini. IMHO the generally slower speeds, the changes made to the course after 1971 and also the improved safety of the cars made sure that Bandini was the last one to die there.
It's also considered by the drivers as the most prestigious to win, so little room for even the smallest error!
Covered cockpit. The opposite of F1, NASCAR probably has the safest cars racing. It’s a giant roll cage. Crashing is part of the race. It’s legalized road rage.
F1 drivers don’t want covered cockpits for their own reasons -quick exits, nostalgia, debris, looks, etc.
They should have Lexan windscreens on front and sides. I know they tested them, but look at the debris/wheel injuries, there’s got to be a quick release to make it feasible
The halo is a great idea and you can’t change my mind after grossjean and Hamilton last year.
It's a great idea, but they are extremely ugly in the current state. They also cause issues with drivers upside down and trying to escape the car. This is in no way an endorsement against it, however, I firmly believe an aeroscreen similar to those seen in IndyCar would be a much better option.
Another safety improvement would be to eliminate armco barriers entirely and replace them with SAFER barriers. This would have prevented Grosjean's incident entirely.
@@MrJr1976 realy? the skeleton of an aeroscreen is very similar to the halo and in the last indy race the screen fogged up so the drive could not see good. I think for indy car it makes sense because they encounter small parts at higher speeds
@@ioni6x The skeleton is the same, but it looks so much better. The aeroscreen have been good for 3+ years now.
Agreed
I don't like the look of the halo. But it is a proven lifesaver.
Roger Williamson is one of the most tragic losses in motorsport history. Imagine seeing your friend die right infront of your eyes knowing you can't help him despite how hard you try.
This video actually highlights the importance of seat belts as well as survival cells and carbon fibre that when used together with the halo makes the driver much safer.
Same thing with the body material used. A Mercedes Benz at the 1955 24 Hrs of Le Mans flew straight into the stands killing almost 80 innocent lives, some of which were burned from the highly flammable magnesium body of the car
Thank you for including Maria de Vilotta into the list :)
Most people or lists didnt cover her story or the fact, that the Halo would have saved her too. well done research
Very much so.
What an amazing lady.Rest In Peace,Maria.
That accident was very unfortunate and also horrifying. I am sure that the halo would have saved her injuries. I don't think she could have been going 'that' fast, (in relation to other accidents where drivers have walked away.)
The Pirate Queen on track. We still miss her. It's been 10 years already?
One of the first thoughts that went through my mind when I saw Romain Grosjean's crash at Bahrain in 2020, was that if the Halo hadn't been mandated, we'd likely have seen a Helmut Koinigg-like crash.
In 2020.
That would've been the end of the sport right there.
Now they need to do the walls he was almost pinned in the car because of outdated ARMCO. It pathetic that the so called most modern and hi tech racing series used technology from 70 years ago to keep cars in the track.
well with heavy cars you will always have problems.. they can pierce guardrails whereas a 600 kg would have bounced off harmlessly, and you have more risk of cars bouncing back on the track before depleting inertia.. like hubert.
in a light car the halo wouldn't even have been needed for the grosjean crash.
No I think it would of just highlighted another area that needed safety improvement, Dont forget the halo came about mainly because of the horror after jules Bianchis incident, I think that armco need to be designing a different style safety barrier that doesn't allow for a car to penatrate it like his did.
@@zacharyradford5552 Chain Bear made a video about all the barriers used in F1 couple of years ago and described armco as well. The problem with this type of barrier occurs when they're not properly attached and that's why for example Cevert or Koinning had died. On the other hand, with current heavy and fast F1 cars, they will probably pierce these barriers very easily (to be honest, I really don't know as I am not even a slightly experienced physicist).
@@danipunto-e-basta8714 uhhhh, didn't Koinigg just drive straight through an armco barrier in a 575kg car and get decapitated?
Also 2020 cars were only 746kg so it's not like that's massive increase to weight, they've gotten bigger for sure but materials have also gotten way lighter.
Alternative title: "How many different ways can you say 'The halo doesn't protect you if you don't have a seatbelt and get thrown from the car?"
Almost all these accidents wouldn’t habe bern fatal in a modern f1 car
@@Tzomthekliafafanboy yes because the seatbelts would hold you in.
Make a video like this but without fatalities, and instead just major crashes that did not kill the driver, Like Niki Lauda at the Nurburgring, but like, pretend he's in a F1 2022 car, would that prevent the car from going into flames? That would be a really good video idea.
Dont know about preventing fire. But pulling him out of the flames (if there was one) wouldn't be any easy due to halo.
Second.
Well, if you take that accident and “replace” the 312T with F1-75, then the outcome of that accident is completely different- there wouldn’t be any fire, Niki wouldn’t suffer from any sort of injuries. Niki would walk out on his own out of the car.
How is that interesting? Driver just walks away in every crash. In your example nikki would have just stepped out of his non burning car
@@ThatSB Sorry, I wrote the comment badly, I meant hypothetically if niki lauda was in a modern f1 car and he was driving the Nordschleife and crashed at the same corner, and his car burst into flames, would he be able to get out or no?
If the safety procedures we have today were in place since the first race in 1950, I reckon almost all of these deaths could’ve been prevented
Yes, and that's how the introduction of safety procedures (unfortunately) works. Enough people have to die because of the lack of them for them to be created/introduced.
On the other hand you might view it in the positive light that we are learning from mistakes and are trying to make sure that no death happens more than once.
It’s a shame how no matter how safe the cars are someone will still die, unfortunately the safest car we could probably make is a car without and engine
@@Birdyflys-tt9gm Reducing the power is a great alternative.
I mean idk, the major problem back then was the fact that the cars were extremely unsafe, and cought fire very easily
@@ERTChimpanzeethe whole point of formula 1 is that it’s meant to be fast. Reducing the speed lowers the skill ceiling of the sport & I guarantee all drivers would be against it.
You so easily could have turned this into a shock and awe gore fest, but didn’t. Thank you for keeping this respectful.
Probably would have been demonetised for that...
He cencored the tom pryce car image tho, the real foto is terrifying
@@adillakandi.r why? was the photo taken when the fire extinguisher struck him?
@@mrfadesba it's not particularly horrific in my opinion-that was when the marshall was hurtling in the air- but rather disconcerting I suppose, as it shows the Shadow moving at speed, but with the drivers head pointing downwards (there's a slightly later picture before the car hits the Ligier and Pryce seems almost headless), probably dripping with blood by that point.
When you said "yes, the halo would've saved sennas life"
Goosebumps.
They were wrong then
No it wouldn’t have saved senna at all the suspension wasn’t a fatal injury the basilar skull fracture is what killed him it caused a haemorrhage in the artery that runs to your ear which almost always happens with a basilar and he essentially drowned in his own blood
@@MrDannyboyhall definitely not the halo alone but if he had the hans, higher cockpit and tighter fit in the cockpit couldve.
@@MrDannyboyhall but the halo could have prevented the suspension from hitting his head and pushing him back to the seat, making the impact be stronger due to not being prepared for the crash, because from what I know, that was the reason why he got the skull fracture
@@MrDannyboyhall Senna succumbed due to neck , basilar skull injuries so HANS device would’ve saved him for sure , not HALO
If I'm not mistaken, I think it was Leclerc, Jules Bianchi's godson who was the first one protected by the halo in a crash, at the Belgian GP in 2018.
Then we had Grosjean in 2020, Hamilton in 2021, and Zhou in 2022.
Yes but they were not fatalities
The video is talking about the drivers who d!ed
...And to think CL16 won his 1st race there the following season.
@@TheCreativeGuy264we are talking about what the halo did save and that Jules Bianchi caused the halo to be implemented
Yup. He protected his godson @@JustK4Y1512
Tom Pryce was the first one I thought of when thinking about this subject. It was certainly the fire extinguisher that killed him. Sadly wouldn't have been enough for the Marshall though.
I hadn't heard about that until today.. And saw the video.. I just have to wonder how that situation could've happened. How did no one do anything to prevent it?
@@tangentfox4677 Sadly, it was a case of a young, inexperienced Marshall not taking adequate care when crossing the track. Benefit of hindsight says that fire equipment on the other side could have saved them both but it appeared there was little Pryce could do to avoid it
@@denzil_red one other thing, the bit of track that led up to that part was a bit of a hill so from a distance you couldn’t see any cars coming along so that’s why they both ran along, unfortunately we know what happened next
@@denzil_red You blame the young marshal, but he was following an older experienced marshal who also chose to run across a dangerous track and narrowly avoided being killed himself.
@@MrSniperfox29 I dont blame anybody. I was asked how it occurred and that was the result of the investigation. It certainly wasn't the drivers error was it?
In several of those crashes, especially those before the 1980's, the structure of the car where the Halo could be attached would have crumbled or got crushed in the impact, nullifying any protection that the Halo could have provided.
A halo would have caused other issues and added as many fatalities to the list as it removed, if not more.
1) In the event of drivers being thrown from their cars, a halo may have resulted in the driver striking the halo and being killed, as opposed to being flung clear but potentially surviving - For example, Hans Hermann's famous barrel roll at AVUS in 1959 where he was thrown from the car but walked away.
2) In the event of fire, a halo would have made extraction harder, if not impossible - Lauda wouldn't have survived Nurburgring 1976, and who knows how Berger's crash at Imola, Jos Verstappen's pit lane fire at Hockeheim, or Diniz's fire in Argentina would have been affected by a halo. You could also probably apply this to the majority of fires before 1980 or so, given there wasn't the extraction tests or the same standards of fireproof overalls - it's easy to imagine a driver being severely burned and/or killed in an accident where they otherwise escaped with only minor burns in a non-halo car.
Also, if we add a halo to the early Indy 500 races that were part of the world championship, would these have remained on the cars after the Indy 500 was removed from the world championship? If so, how would this have affected single seater series in the US going forwards?
Maybe Dan Wheldon and definitely Justin Wilson would have survived their accidents, but how many drivers would have been saved in the earlier years, and how many 'new' fatalities would have occurred as a result of a halo? For instance:
- Danny Ongais' Indy 500 crash in 1981 is an example of a crash where a halo potentially traps or crushes the driver, causing further injury or death
- Given how close Alex Zanardi was to death in 2001, would the extra few seconds needed to extract him from a car with a halo ultimately been the difference between life and death?
- What about the invisible methanol fires that you used to see in the past? What complications would have arisen from the extra time taken to escape the car, and teams not properly extinguish an invisible fire inside the cockpit? (especially if there was an aero screen instead of a halo)
3) You mentioned crumbling or crushing of the halo, and Jackie Stewart's 1966 Spa crash is an example of that which deserves an entire section of its own. If Stewart was crushed by a halo and killed at Spa in 1966 in our hypothetical scenario, what would the knock-on effect have been for driver safety and the sport as a whole going forwards?
a) Do the GPDA still boycott the 1969 Belgian Grand Prix, and how long would the old Spa-Francorchamps layout have been allowed to stay on the calendar?
b) Would the GPDA have disbanded before 1982, and would it have been as impactful without Stewart?
c) Would the Armco problems seen at Watkins Glen and Montjuic Park have been tolerated by drivers, especially if those accidents have better outcomes due to a halo?
d) Would we have been racing at the Nordschleife beyond 1976?
e) Would Sid Watkins have been accepted in the paddock in 1978?
f) If the dangers of 60s and 70s F1 had persisted into the early 80s and the beginning of the turbo era, would this have prevented Bernie Ecclestone turning F1 into the global commercial success that it has since become? 80s turbo cars with 60s/70s safety when the series was establishing itself on TV may have killed F1 altogether.
g) Given Senna and Schumacher were both pay drivers (albeit extremely talented), would the previous issues have made F1 so much less marketable that they lacked funding to ever reach F1? If F1 hadn't grown as it did in the Senna/Prost/Piquet/Mansell era, would Lewis Hamilton have ever got in a go kart, or had backing from McLaren during his junior career?
h) No Jackie Stewart means no Stewart Grand Prix, which means no sale of the team to Jaguar and no Red Bull Racing as we know them today. Does Red Bull start a team from scratch instead, would Minardi have become Red Bull instead of becoming Toro Rosso, or would Red Bull have decided against entering the sport altogether? What happens to the entire Red Bull junior program as a result? Does Vettel simply win 4 world championships in a Red Bull team based in Faenza instead of Milton Keynes, or does he never even make it to F1?
i) Without Jackie Stewart, does the Tyrrell team have the same success? If not, it likely puts the team out of business long before 1998, meaning no BAR takeover, no Honda, no Brawn and no Mercedes as we know them today.
While it's possible that another driver would have taken the role of Stewart in the crusade for driver safety, and his death wouldn't have impacted the future of the sport to the extent above, it's still interesting to think about just how different the sport would have been. You could certainly make an argument that if Jackie Stewart was killed at Spa in 1966, the last FOURTEEN Drivers' Championships would have been won by somebody else.
@@Evilpengwinz78 Wow, what a brilliant and fascinating post, thank you.
I love this sort of discussion - many can't stand it for some reason - but how one thing like Jackie's incredible 1966 survival has so many consequences is fascinating I think. If Graham Hill hadn't chosen to stop to help, and then got help from another driver and spectators(!), Jackie would have had virtually no hope, so Graham deserves huge credit for modern F1 too!!
Of course the modern halo is both fantastically strong and (I understand) easily removeable if necessary, but I fully appreciate that one can't, even in a theoretical exercise, 'impose' a 2022 halo on old cars!
I love F1 history, and will be bothered, I suppose, for the rest of my life by the sheer bad luck and trivial seeming mistakes which killed so many brilliantly gifted drivers, and by how easily they could have been avoided. (Some would call it fate - Pedro Rodriguez was a fatalist, fanatically so it seems, hence many hugely risky drives in dodgy cars - like the one which killed him in 1971. This of course is a huge separate philosophical question! )
For example -
Why did Jim Clark drive in Hockenheim not Brands Hatch where he was expected to be? Various vague reasons have been suggested, I reckon though he 'just chose to', which killed him.
Why didn't Rindt fix his belts properly? Some said fear of fire, I reckon he was just uncomfortable and worried about damaging his...er...jewels in a big impact. And, just like that, it killed him.
Why did Bruce Mclaren rush to get more laps in before lunch, somehow resulting in someone not fixing the back bodywork down properly, which killed him? (There's also the horrendous bad luck of hitting the only obstruction anywhere near when he lost control.)
Why didn't Cevert skip the US GP to make absolutely sure his ankles were 100% right after his huge crash in Canada? Nobody knows why he crashed even now, his ankles fractionally slowing his reactions when pushing for pole cannot be discounted - he only brushed the right barrier before fatally losing control.
And, away from the track, why on earth didn't Graham Hill divert and land his plane in Luton instead of risking a dodgy landing in fog in Elstree. Simply to avoid having to get taxis to get to their cars it seems - unbelievable.
@@ysgol3 To give an answer to the first question, the reason Clark attended the Deutschland Trophäe at Hockenheim in '68 rather than the BOAC 500 at Brands was primarily due to contractual obligations with the tyre manufacturer Firestone, but was also due to Clark having already agreed to race for Colin Chapman, who was fielding the Lotus 48s and 41Cs in Baden-Württemberg as apposed to Ford, who were fielding GT40s and the F3Ls in Kent.
Although the notion of Clark "just choosing to" race at Hockenheim is technically correct due to him "choosing" to race for Chapman as opposed to Ford, the decision was also influenced by Clark's Firestone contract.
@@adamthea3766 Hi, thank you for your kind response.
You'll know that Clark was reported as going to appear at Brands, his name was even in the programme I believe. If he'd have insisted, I'm sure he'd have gone there not Hockenheim. But, for some reason, he didn't, and he hated Hockenheim, he probably knew before he arrived bout its horrendous dangerousness. Jackie Stewart has said that by the time of his death Jimmy was standing up to Chapman's 'orders' more and more, it would have been very interesting to see where that new attitude went.
BTW, one of the most disgusting things I've ever read is that when Chapman arrived at Hockenheim following the crash the first thing he did was march up to poor Dave Sims, Jim's mechanic, and say 'What the hell have you done?'.
This may not be especially true if we count 1950's Indy roadsters, as in the 1950's the Indianapolis 500 was part of the Formula 1 season. Most teams ran Kurtis roadsters, which were heavy and had a tendency to roll over in high-speed crashes. The drivers often died because their exposed head was crushed, as was often the case in sprint car racing. Modern sprint cars are similar to how they were in the 1950's but with massive halo-like external roll cages fully enclosing the driver.
As the Indianapolis 500 was largely a contest of engineering at the time, it's no surprise that some big strides in safety technology have come from it. In 1956 Ray Crawford survived a head-on collision because of his seatbelt and other teams quickly added seatbelts to their cars in response. In 1963, Junior Johnson ran a Kurtis-Kraft roadster with what you could now call a Halo, it was an exposed roll cage over the driver's head and through the whole chassis.
It was officially stated that Jules had passed under the crane and his head did not strike the side of the crane. He died from the extreme forces as a result of the car colliding with things it's not designed to, namely the crane
Jules was more so a case of unbelievably bad luck, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Realistically you throw even the modern cars at that tractor at the same speed, there's a good chance the drivers are still going to be hurt bad and possibly suffer the same fate as Jules. At the very least his passing forced F1 to take another hard push at safety to improve the sport
@@princeendymion9044 but tbf he lost control during double yellow which is a big no no
@@rpgrap6461 under conditions the race shouldve not gone under way, low downforce cars, engine with lots of torque and really heavy rain
Yeah. An issue this whole analysis seems to suffer from is assuming that injury results from foreign objects striking the driver. In the 1980s and 1990s basilar skull fractures were probably the biggest cause of death for drivers in top divisions. This injury is a product of the body's own movement when brought to a sudden stop. The halo wouldn't have saved Senna just as the windshield did not save Earnhardt. The HANS device, which limit the independents movement of the head, is the best tool for preventing that injury. However, a sudden stop can still cause horrific injuries, especially brain injuries. It seems that Bianchi essentially struck the crane with the side of his role hoop, not his head, and the force of the sudden stop, not direct intrusion, caused a significant amount of the trauma.
Clearly not seem the footage of it. You can see him hit the crane.
The grosjean crash fills me with such an appreciation for how far safety has come in modern racing. Obviously it’s not safe, but him surviving that is a culmination of every safety improvement made because of the deaths of hundreds or maybe thousands of people. Which is bittersweet
Correction on Bianchi's crash: H̶i̶s̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶m̶e̶t̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶m̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶a̶c̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶r̶a̶n̶e̶. What killed him was the sudden stop when the roll-bar caught the crane as it was sheered away, resulting in a Diffuse axonal injury. The FIA themselves concluded that the HALO would have done nothing to save Bianchi's life, as the fatal injury to his brain was caused by sudden deceleration.
Edit: Upon further research into this myself the FIA said Bianchi's helmet did contact the crane, though the HALO would have still not saved him.
FIA investigated themselves and found no wrongdoing by themselves.
@@Hamisxa Yeah they attributed the accident to driver error, though they are at blame for not cancelling the race in the first place.
Like Justin Wilson's death at Pocono in the Indy Car series, the driver's head doesn't have to take the direct impact to kill them. A DAI is more akin to a super massive concussion, which would come from the snap of the role hoop catching the crane. If his helmet had hit the crane directly, it would have been more likely a skull fracture or other direct injury.
@@stephenbritton9297 The difference between Wilson and Bianchi is that Wilson did suffer a direct hit to the head from the nose cone of Sage Karam's car. The Aeroscreen would have saved Justin Wilson's life.
@@ceeinfiniti1389 Disturbingly, while the aeroscreen would certainly have saved Wilson, the Halo is anyone's guess.
The reality is it’s shocking few that would have been saved by the HALO. Seat belts, helmets and better fire procedures and at track health care have individually saved more lives. F1 got damn lucky that Grosjean didn’t get pinned because of the ARMCO would have had death that from fire that hasn’t happened in about 50 years.
Huge thanks to the Halo for saving Zhou at silverstone. Yet another example of its importance
Glad you included Maria de Villota. She is too often overlooked. Great video about a sad subject. I remember seeing most of them from 1974 onwards and they're still shocking.
I believe the halo definitely helped save Zhou this past weekend at Silverstone. Imagine if he did not have it dragging upside down
It was a major factor in saving Zhou. The roll bar was completely grind down to the point where it didn't reach over the Halo anymore. The Halo did prevent Zhous head from beeing dragged over the concrete for several seconds. He would have had severe head injuries at the very least.
@@Edelweiss1102 Hill in Spain...Diniz at Nürburgring...all still allive...
@@highlander5521 It's called luck.....adding dots to your comment doesn't make you correct.....see how silly you look?
I want to say that Jackie Stewart is a legend for wearing seatbelts in the late 60s
Hi, Jackie is amazing, but these things are so complicated.
In the 1969 US GP Graham Hill was wearing belts, had a problem with the car and undid them to jump out to push start it. When he got back in, the belts were such that he himself couldn't do them up, so he headed for the pits to get the car checked. On the way a tyre burst, the car somersaulted, and the now unbelted Graham was thrown out through the front, breaking his legs by both knees being 'snapped back' by the front of the car as it happened. Horrendous of course, but he survived and came back and won again (no GP wins though). Graham and others said, unanimously I believe, that if he'd been belted in he'd have been torn to pieces like the car was as it somersaulted. There's no known film of this, there is a still photo showing the car, already practically unrecognisable as an F1 car, flying through the air with Graham already on the ground.
Legend?
@@JeffSherlockJackie Stewart is one of the greatest drivers in F1 history, so yes, It's a legend.
Not just that, Stewart was behind most advancements in driver safety, and ensuring dangerous stretches of track were made safer.
Jackie Stewart is a hero making a stand for driver safety at a time when it was not fashionable to do so, so many retired drivers may not have lived to see retirement without him.
I saw a programme with him where he explained that he and his wife had sat down and wrote a list of all of their friends that competed in motorsport who had died. Their were 67 names on the list.
@@chrisst8922 that is horrendous, I wouldn't think that that I have had a third of that number of workmates die while employed together over 37 years let alone over 10 or 12 years.
A minor point, but when speculating I would always say the Halo MAY have saved their life. It is not a certainty.
The 2000s were safer. Only decade with no deaths
A halo, alongside a much stronger car would almost certainly have saved Cevert.
Dude, bianchi impact had over 250G, no human can survive that, the record is 211G, so jules whould have died anyway
But he wasn't going that fast so how could the g's be that high?
@@pim9089 idk, but it was that high
@@pim9089 His body was deccelerated with 92g and a speed of 124 km/h when he hit the crane. He would have survived this. But, unfortunately, the crane acted like a brake from above, as the car went under it. This led to the car being forced to the ground from the nearly 7 ton heavy crane, which unfortunately led to a 254g decceleration on Bianchi's head. I hope that Jules will not be forgotten.
No the record is 214G by Kenny Bräck on lap 57 during a IndyCar race at Texas Motor Speedway when his car was launched into the catchfence and colliding head-on at over 200 mph following a collision with another driver, The entire car was destroyed except the cockpit which was still intact with Bräck still inside, He returned to IndyCar 18 months later.
211G is Chris van der Drift at Brands Hatch
You would have thought after 6 deaths in 14 months between 1960 and 61' there should have been seat belts in the car
Interesting hypothesis - surprised you didn't include the HANS device - as that also had the potential to save driver's lives too - maybe you could do one on this in a futre video (if you haven't already ?)?
Thanx for doing this. - well put together & researched. Nice one. Cheers. 👍😎✌
Not to be weird, and very off topic, but damn Francois was a handsome man!
it should be acknowleged - you are right
He apparently could pull in women like you wouldn’t believe
No for real don’t want to derail but I noticed the same!
21:02 his car set on fire at "barbecue bend" 😨 that's a horrible coincidence
Y'know, after this video, I wanna see a video dissecting those F1 fatalities (and maybe other large/famous crashes) and comparing which modern safety features could have prevented deaths or injuries in those cases. Just a breakdown of how each modern safety feature improved safety and how exactly they work.
We can certainly say that there is a very good chance that Lewis Hamilton might not be alive today without the halo.
Monza 2020, right? The incident with Hamilton and Verstappen at T1?
@Sav Dav Ah
I don't think anybody can say that with certainty.
@@thecommentingstugMonza 2021
It amazes me how since the halo has been introduced we've had 3 maybe 4 incidents involving the head when for years without it we didn't have any. Last head injury(not concussions) besides bianchi was massa and the halo wouldn't have done squat for that.
I know i'm late but there's a detail you missed from Ricardo's death at 11:04.
He wasn't killed by the fire. He died because the car flipped, and he got sent flying into the barriers, hitting them from the top with the hips. A friend from the Rodríguez family who witnessed the accident said that his body was essentially cut in half
Again the outcome is still same
Halo can’t save Ricardo in this case because with halo he could hit halo which was fatal.
I was wondering where Jim Clark was until I remembered that he died in a F2 car.
F2 has the Halo too though
and the title doesn't say during few races it just says drivers so he should have been included in this list.
@@jrsmith5080and sadly, it didn’t save the lives of the two recent Spa fatalities.
Very good account. My only complaint is, you can't say "the halo would have saved his life". It certainly "could", but you can't be sure it "would".
It’s crazy how many of these would’ve just been saved by a seatbelt and it took until the 70’s for that measure to be implemented. Don’t get me wrong obviously the helmet and the other measures are huge but it’s crazy how many of those early deaths just needed a seatbelt to significantly increase the chance of survival. I’m a newer fan of F1 and learning more about the history and seeing these deaths laid out like this is crazy. Obviously I knew early F1 was extremely dangerous and everyone has heard of the big deaths like Senna but seeing the lack of any basic safety measures in the beginning is jaw dropping.
Man, you don't realise how brutal F1 is until you hear this. Its also crazy, cause most of these events have pictures or video, and... Just don't. Anyway, its impressive seeing the safety these days.
also interesting that despite all these, we still have a fatal crash, Hubert. The cockpit is designed to be hit once, if you get hit on the same side again, it won't protect you. (But I don't think that's physically possible as of now. Like carbon fiber is basically the strongest material usable for a car)
*How brutal F1 was*
Helmuth Koinigg actually died due to a barrier impact similar to what happened to Romain Grosjean at Bahrain in 2020
a modern car with no Halo looks so weird to me now, like how did we think it was normal for the drivers to be out there fully exposed lol
But it wouldn't save Jules' life
F1 in the 00s didn't have halos and no one died, so it was pretty normal and looked fine.
@@MooncricketsIncThe 2000s were weird in hindsight. Not a single death in the sport. Truly a golden age
Amazing video! However I do have a disagreement with your assessment about Jules Bianchi. Looking at the fan video... it seems like the helmet passed underneath the crane and it was the rollbar that made contact with the crane causing immediate deceleration which ended up killing him. As much as I'm a massive fan of the Halo I don't think it would've done a thing in Bianchi's fatal crash.
The fia investigated some head injuries and weather the halo would’ve made no difference, helped or hindered in the situation. For jules bianchi they came to the conclusion that it would’ve made next to no difference. The roll hoop can take a LOT more force than the halo but when you look at images of the crash the roll hoop was completely destroyed.
It was actually officially stated that he passed under the crane without hitting his head and died from the force
@@andymb601 that’s what he’s saying
@@prophswrld no, he said he just observed it, I'm backing it up by saying it was officially stated by the FIA post-investigation
Halo wouldn’t have saved Jules anyway
Honestly this is why nascar is so popular, they managed to still have those "top ten most deadly crashes" with cars flipping and rolling and shattering with panels flying everywhere and then the drivers get out "I rid not even notice I hit anything yet"
Nascar was pretty much dying since Dale Earnhardt's fatal crash in 2001
@@vanento7229 Yet NASCAR reached its zenith of popularity after his death lmao
Not that is good but flipping and Roling is better than a sudden stop lol
@@vanento7229 According to all available statistics, NASCAR reached it’s peak during the 2005 season.
Well it’s a stupid question because you can’t stick halos on those old cars and if you could it’d be worse as it would be harder for the driver to get out, for example a burning 70s car upside down, you wouldn’t want a halo because it would prevent them from getting out, plus cars from the 50s/60s you’d be best to be thrown free from the car, so this is a pointless video past is the past
Halo probably saved Zhou today
Just a note on the Ratzenberger accident: the failed part of the front wing didn't go under the car. It flew up. (Watch the replays, you can see it.) Losing half the front downforce meant the front didn't have enough grip for braking and he understeered into the wall. The impact alone probably caused the skull fracture without needing a wheel. Remember, this was in a time before HANS so Roland's head kept moving until any flex ran out, and when that happens basilar fractures happen. He never had a chance. Halo or no halo, humans can't take that sort of hits.
Regarding Senna's steering column, telemetry doesn't support the claim that it snapped. Senna's car bottomed out in Tamburello after the restart, likely lifting the nose. He went *straight* out.
I watched it live. I still remember the moments things went wrong.
And no, halo doesn't protect you from skull fractures caused by excessive deceleration. You can only do so much to control the head, and the point between the skull and the spine will always be a weak point. You just don't stop from 300+ km/h within a couple of metres and live.
Plus Ratzenberger had been having problems with the brakes in his car on the Friday. Which was confirmed by David Brabham, his teammate, after he took Roland's car and tested the brakes himself, as he'd had more experience with those type of brakes. Maybe that problem wasn't totally rectified and combined with the front wing detaching from the car, that contributed to it?? He suffered 3 separate injuries, all serious enough that any of them would have been fatal on their own. I totally agree with your comment, very good points made in a respectful, informative and factual manner.
Interesting how:
- In the 50s and 60s, the Halo was the least of most driver's troubles. Instead, most drivers died due to the lack of other safety measures that we now take for granted.
- In the 70s, safety was now an important concern. Now, the Halo starts becoming a difference maker, even though there were still many other elements that were much more visible, and thus higher-priority, at the time (such as track construction in the two Watkins Glen accidents, and marshal procedures in Tom Pryce's accident).
- The 80s saw the ground effect and turbo eras, which pushed speeds to levels never seen before. At this time, fatal crashes were so violent that the Halo wouldn't have been topical. Instead, other safety developments (including the end of the ground effect era) would bring a first true era of safety, that would last... until 1994.
- 1994 was an insane year for Formula 1, with the outlawing of driver aids exposing the drivers to more crashes, which put on evidence many remaining safety flaws in Formula 1. Then San Marino 1994 happened... and Formula 1 changed forever. Now, more than ever, safety was the actual number 1 concern. Most of the remaining safety flaws were handled, either immediately after San Marino (such as the removal of many hazardous track locations), or over time (e.g. the reinforcement of wheel tethers in the 2000s, after a marshal was killed by a loose wheel). After that, it seemed that fatal crashes were a thing of the past, that would never ever happen again...
- ...until 2014, when F1 realized that they had missed another spot. Thus, the Halo was introduced. Yet, interestingly, the hazards have been more evident now than earlier in the century, with incidents such as Antoine Hubert's fatal F2 crash in 2019, and Romain Grosjean's crash in 2020 (in which the halo almost certainly saved his life), reminding us that, no matter how much safety is developed... they're still racing cars at 200 miles per hour. There's always going to be risks, and at those speeds, lives are always on the line.
The old cars had no way to attach a halo. They don't even apply.
Honestly the way some of these accidents are described, it makes me wonder if a few of these guys would have still died even if they were driving a 2022-grade F1 car with proper safety equipment and marshalling.
Halo would not have saved bianchi. Even the FIA have stated that it wouldn't.
Would love to see someone make a video like this but for the hans device
I know both Earnhardt and Senna could’ve been saved if they wore it
yes please
Earnhardt would've survived if he had a Hans, Senna on the other hand wouldn't, since his head got pierced by a part of the suspension
@@racer501_sb Senna could have survived, albeit with heavy injuries. He had a basilar (is that how you spell it?) skull fracture in addition to the suspension, which probably killed him. He would've been heavily injured by the suspension and it would still have been a horrifying crash, but he would have a better chance at survival.
@@nerd_nato564 well his brain got penetrated by a metal rod so
@@nerd_nato564 professor sid Watkins said it was the piece of suspension that penetrated his skull that caused his death as did the autopsy
You should do a reverse of this video. Which drivers in the HALO era would have died if not for the HALO? Thanks for the great video!
I disagree with your conclusion about Cevert’s accident. The Armco tore the front of the car open like a tin opener and would most likely have ripped the halo off.
True p
Probably wouldn't of, The halo can get his by 20kg and still barely be damaged, 50 more kg and it'll be torn off, I don't think the barrier weighs 70kg.
Not on the modern cars, as the HALO is part of the chassis
Agree, Jackie Stewart who was one of the first on scene said his body was torn in half as the car had disintegrated. . The halo would not have saved his life.
@@Zenvitic Yes, but a car in 1973 is very different.
Look at Grosjean’s Bahrain accident. What saved him from being chewed by the barrier was both the halo but also the strength of the survival cell, the latter of which remained intact. Whereas in 1973 there was no survival cell, and Cevert’s car was torn to shreds, quite literally, meaning he was (to be graphic) almost cut in half from neck to hip. The halo would have done nothing to prevent those injuries. He actually had no head injuries at all, his head never contacted the barrier as far as anyone could tell, the injuries he suffered were from the neck down and were a consequence of the entire front half of the car being cut to ribbons.
I red the sad Hulme history trying to save Revson many years ago, when drivers demanded more security measures. Hulme told he was back at the hotel, washing Revson's blood and feeling angry and powerless, thinking of so many fellow drivers lost, he said he was tired of living the same horrible experience again and again.
As I recall, that was Hulme's final year in F1.
I had the pleasure meeting both of those men at the Mosport Can-Am in 1972.
We need to talk about implementing SAFER barriers and outlawing armco barriers entirely. Armco barriers fold down if a heavy car is thrust into them creating a ramp. These barriers also let low-slung formula-style cars slide underneath them posing a danger to drivers.
Armco is fine if it is installed properly the problem is a lot of tracks it isn’t installed properly I do agree with the safer barriers I’ve seen people hit them at Indianapolis and they are amazing how they absorb impacts
@@MrDannyboyhall I've never seen armco barriers NOT either make the accident worse or catapult the car. Remember the incident that killed a marshal at brands hatch?
@@MrJr1976 Armco does it’s job just fine like I said if installed properly it’s old tech now obviously but I’ve seen Armco take some massive hits and held up perfectly of course safer barriers are a much better option as the dissipate energy very well but Armco is not unsafe if done properly
@@MrDannyboyhall I've rarely seen armco be installed safely. It's just a massacre every time. On top of that, the SAFER barrier is effective even when not installed 100% correctly. So it's more idiot proof. If armco HAS to be installed 100% correctly to work, then there's already a point of failure
@@MrJr1976 When was this? At brands hatch.
Caught a couple erroneous pictures: The supposed snap of Luigi Musso's car is actually the wreckage of Alphonso de Portago's Ferrari sports car, after the crash in the 1957 Mille Miglia; The burning hulk shown during the Alan Stacey clip is Willy Mairesse's Ferrari from his 1962 shunt at Spa. The correct pix do exist, but they are very rare and, true, do not look much different.
The day Jules Bianchi had his crash was the hardest gp I’ve ever had to watch seeing the shock in every driver and the reaction too it was very hard to watch
since Cevert's car was split in half and tangled, and he was shredded by the armco, maybe the halo would have just been one extra piece of car to cut before freeing the wrecked car at the end of the session. great video btw, very good arguments!!
No way cervert survives with a halo. The car was utterly destroyed and he was cut in two by the barriers. Only a modern car would survive his crash
Agree.
I like the halo but I think the hans device has saved more.
that last one in a way hurt the most to hear, when growing up i was aspiring to be the greatest at everything i do but always believed i was bad at things due to lack of good equipment, then to hear that this guy at Monaco got 9th place overtaking cars much quicker than his own through nothing but pure talent really just stuck with me, then to watch this same guy about 4 - 6 months later have a massive accident and die due to it, which could of been prevented, harsh man, RIP Jules
I want to add that this guy is misinformed. Its has been clearly stated by the developers of the HALO that it would NOT have saved bianchi. Rather the conditions around the accident; him going off while a crane is on track is what should have been prevented.
Just something I caught: the track at which Tom Pryce and Frederik Jansen van Vuuren were killed was at Kyalami Circuit, rather than Prince George, which hadn’t been used since 1966.
I realize Jim Clark’s death was an F2 race and the Halo would not have saved him due to the car disintegrating on impact with a tree. He would have possibly survived in a modern F1 car.
The Halo has definitely saved at least 2 drivers from a bad injury
The Real Game cha ger was the Hans.
Most drivers died from internal beheading.
Great Video! But I just wanna clear up some widespread misconceptions about the halo and Jules. The program for better head protection was launched prior to either Marussia crash in 2011. The deciding factors to start the program were the death of Henry Surtees and Dan Wheldon and also Massas hit in Hungary 09. It was accelerated after the death of Biancchi, de Villotta and Justin Willson. In the aftermath of Bianchi's crash, the VSC was introduced to avoid high speeds when marshalls or safety/recovery vehicles are on track. When the Halo was introduced, the FIA held a press conference explaining the reasoning of the halo. They had ran multiple simulations for dozens of crashes in F1 and other series over the last 25 years. (th-cam.com/video/AYkGjUHstKY/w-d-xo.html)
Regarding Jules crash. The speed mentioned int the Video was the speed the telemetry initially reported. The problem with the Data was the flawed brake by wire system Marussia had at the time which overrode driver input, hindering Jules braking. The FIA stated a speed of 210kph (around 125 mph) in their report and a deceleration of 254g or 2.490 m/s. The halo would have not saved Jules Biancchi as the force was too high for the halo.
Still good research in the Video, but a major part of the report only was reported in German media for some reason.
I also saw a lot of comments wondering how a slow speed (200kph still slow for 254g) can cause high speed, so the physics behind it. G force is a measurement of acceleration, with the unit g being the earths gravitational pull of ~10m/s. To calculated acceleration (deceleration) we can take the velocity difference (delta v) and divide it by the time it took to change this speed(t). In a formula, this is a= (delta)v / t. We get a very high number for the acceleration by either increasing the velocity difference over the same time, or we shorten the time for the same speed. And that's the way we get a high g force with a low speed.
The main reason for the high G forces is the material Bianchi crashed into. It wasn't tyres, it was a crane
nice explanation. Noone survives a 200G+ deceleration. F.e. you have a good chance of death hitting a wall head on at 60 km/h, even though you may not get a single scratch. Your organs basically "fall off" due to the momentum
Great comments, I was just wondering if you took into account that the crane would of been impacted before the area where the halo would of been fixed causing the crane to be on a upwards and forwards trajectory before the halo would of received any forces applied to it, also the angle of the halo and the crane would of been both on a complimentary slant causing the accident forces to be received in a way that is surely easier on the halo? Did you factor any of this in? I'm no scientist, I'm just interested.
@@davidmartin565 No, while technically a factor, when you work with these kinds of speeds and the enormous weight of the crane, little energy go into displacing the crane instead of crushing the body of the car. Especially if you consider he drove under the crane and he halo would pretty much be the first piece of bodywork to hit the crane anyway.
@@williamvanderscheer4327 It also doesn't take into account the impact dynamics would of been dramatically changed if the halo would of been involved, the impact being received by the halo first would of acted on the crane and eliminated the impact to his helmet. Even if the halo failed if you look at the impact angle and how the car and crane reacted to the impact the forces taken by the halo and it's shape surely would of made the blow less violent than it was. I'm asking you not telling you what do you think? I just can't help but think that the halo would of dramatically changed the impact the numbers are often quoted as if he hit a fixed crane head on and at a square angle, but it wasn't, the halo gets dismissed because of the forces but are they seen the same? The g force of the rollbar taking most of the impact after he received the glancing blow to the helmet would not of been the same number if the halo would of been there to do the job it was designed for, the slope of the bottom of the crane even lends more favor to the point, what do you think?
The drivers who died in the 50s all look 20-ish years older than they were.
1950s - 1960s in a nutshell:
- The halo would not have saved lives because nobody wears seatbelts
pretty much
Morbid as it sounds, but part of the appeal of F1 was the risk - daring bravery at incomprehensible speeds.
I appreciate you can't have people killing themselves on TV, however.
Apparently Colin Chapman said to Rindt that if he took the wing off of his Lotus, he would end up crashing. They had a slightly volatile relationship at times and Rindt had voiced his displeasure about the safety of the cars he was expected to drive in the past. It didn’t help that Chapman wouldn't attempt to have a close relationship with Rindt. He said he couldn't let himself become close friends with any of his drivers ever again, after the death of Jim Clark.
Thanks
I don't know, but it definitely saved Zhou's life last weekend
I do question how the halo could stop Bianchi from impacting the crane when the rollbar was snapped clean off. That sort of force would surely buckle the halo as well, wouldn't it?
Not to discredit the halo, it has ALREADY saved several lives, but it seems unlikely that it'd work
I don't agree on Cevert. He was cut in half at the waist by either the guard rail or a post. Way below the head area.
Yes, that's correct cut in half from the hips to the shoulder. sadly the Halo would not have made any difference to him. Poor guy, RIP Legend!
True, but the halo doesn't just protect the head, it protects against breaching of the cockpit. His slicing injury ran from his shoulder area down his body, hence the 'cut in half' story, and the halo could (only speculation of course!) have saved his body from being butchered by the barrier by stopping the barrier reaching it.
Not gonna lie, I would love to see what if videos from you
8:26
The picture belongs to the massive but no fatal crash between Trevor Taylor and Willy Mairesse at Spa in 1962.
Some of the rationales dont make much sense, some are ambiguous - for example - Alan Stacey - theres a possibility that whatever hit Stacey in the face, could still happen with a Halo, especially if its small enough like a bird, a bird could still fit through the gaps of the Halo, so you cant categorically say the Halo would have saved his life.
Outstanding video, respectfully done. Thank you. I was at the 1973 Dutch Grand Prix. To think they didn’t stop the race is hard to grasp. Knowing the halo could have saved Cevert causes reflection. Also remember watching the Bandini accident on Wide World of Sports. Our early heroes gave so much. As well as the innocent spectators. 🙏🏻 Again, thanks for your hard work on this. Great stuff.
Met Cevert at Mosport later that year at the Canadian Grand Prix. Went to Watkins Glen two weeks later for the US GP. As a kid of 11, the death of my hero broke my heart. Koenigg's death the following year was inexcusable.
@@jimeditorial
Very cool you met Francois. He was special and sorry you had to experience that. 🥲 I spent the whole summer there. Stewart was my hero. Went to Monaco, French, British and Dutch Grand Prix plus LeMans. Still today, 1973 would be the year I would pick to go back to. To start with Monaco was other worldly. I watched it at Mirabeau. Will never forget the cars coming down the hill. The smell was unforgettable. That was the first year for the swimming pool too. Magical times of joy and heartbreak. We were blessed to see it. 😇🏎🏁
@@terrymusch9581 Cevert was remarkably generous with his time for a star struck kid....my father arranged special passes for the pits and I spent hours there..theTyrell mechanics were rebuilding the gearbox on both Cevert's and Stewart's cars and Cevert was standing by to jump into the cockpit to test the gear change so he had time to talk to me. In the paddock he had a gaggle of young women around him, something I didn't yet understand at 11 years old. But his death was a realization that life does indeed come to an end.....
@@jimeditorial
What an amazing memory you have. I remember having his Biography “Contract with Death” that he predicted he would die at 30. I will always remember him at that final scene of The Quick and the Dead with him waving goodbye. I am still grieving him 50 years later. I now feel your memories are mine too. We were blessed to be in their presence. 🙏🏻🏎🏁
@@jimeditorial wow, you met him. That's amazing!
Ever since Charles' crash @spa I don't think anyone has critisized the Halo
Especially after Grosejan's crash.
I've seen a video of Tom Pryces fatal accident with that Marshall and it's horrifying
Add two more lives saved by Halo
Silverstone 2022
Excellent report, even if it is hard to determine the exact outcome on some accidents. Example, the Halo would have prevented Senna's tire from hitting him on the head..., but the lack of the Hans device might have killed him anyways at the speed he hit the wall. We will never know.
I hated the look of it but I completely understood how it would help, and since it works so well in IndyCar with their duel windscreen halo option then it would work and F1 just as
The screens are a terrible idea
Halo would NOT have saved Ronald Ratzenberger life, but Hans would have saved him. The cause of his death was that because of the extreme g forces of this specific crash, and as the head was not strapped on, like it is happening today with Halo, the extreme movement of the head broke the base of the skull. The point where the skull is connected with the spine. So, Halo whould not have saved him, but Hans would.
It is not so certain that the HANS device would have saved Roland Ratzenberger since he also had a ruptured aorta as a result of the sudden deceleration of the impact.
Notice how there are fewer deaths at each decade. FIA has done a great job in improving safety systems
Here after nissany-hauger crash in F2...without halo the results would've been definitely different
Let's add Zhou too
Well. The helo once again safed some one. Zhou defently walked away thanks to the halo
I feel it would be more fitting if you would say “could have saved their life” instead of “would have saved their live” I understand it’s your opinion as well as the fact that the HALO would have most likely saved a drivers life, but adding a HALO doesn’t necessarily mean they will survive the accident. This is considering other factors that the HALO could not protect a driver.
I would argue Senna's death would not have been avoidable. Firstly, going off of photos of where his helmet was physically struck, I think even if the HALO had been in place, the suspension would have just missed the structure of the HALO and hit Senna anyway. The position of where the puncture on his helmet is strongly suggests it would have entered the cockpit from the right side, probably at the one o'clock position, an area that the HALO does not actually cover. Considering he hit the wall right-front wheel first, I think it is very likely the suspension bits would have entered the cockpit regardless if the HALO was there or not. The windscreen that Indycar uses would have prevented the suspension from entering the cockpit (or at least would have prevented it from puncturing Senna's helmet) ,but once again I think even if that was the case he still would have died from the sheer forces of the impact.
Secondly, and more crucially, an autopsy of Senna found that he had suffered very serious brain injuries, with medical reports indicating the impact with the wall would have equivalent to falling 30 meters and landing directly on his head. Now while an argument could be made that despite all this that the death was caused by the suspension ,I would like to turn the attention to NASCAR. Between 2000 and 2001, four different NASCAR drivers were killed in an accident. The first one occurred on May 12, 2000. While practicing for the Busch 2000 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Adam Petty, aged just 19 suffered a stuck throttle approaching turn three. He struck the wall nearly head on, and was killed almost instantly by a basilar skull fracture. The next death occurred just eight weeks later. On July 7, 2000, Kenny Irwin Jr., aged 30, was practicing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway when his throttle was hung wide open as he entered the third turn, in manner virtually identical to Adam Petty's crash. The car smashed virtually head-on into the wall, flipped onto its side, skidded for some time before eventually rolling over and coming to a stop on its roof. HIs cause of death was a basilar skull fracture, with many believing the impact had effectively killed him instantly.
The third death happened on February 15, 2001. On the final lap of the Daytona 500, Dale Earnhardt lost control after a small tap from a competitor. He smashed head-on into the turn four wall, and collected another car in the process. While Dale did suffer a basilar skull fracture, it's not clear if this is a result of him hitting the wall, with some arguing that he had actually died due to extreme head and chest injuries that resulted from his seatbelts failing in the accident. Dale was 51. The fourth and final death occurred on October 13, 2001. During a Craftsman truck series race (the O'Reilly 400 at Texas Motor Speedway), Tony Roper, aged 35, was battling for position when he made contact with another truck. This caused his truck to make a hard right turn, colliding virtually head on into the concrete wall. Unresponsive, he was extracted from the car, and was pronounced dead the following day, having never regained consciousness. While initially diagnosed with s severe neck injury that was preventing blood flow to his brain, an autopsy found his actual cause of death to be the result of a basilar skull fracture.
The bottom line is this: hitting a concrete wall at the speeds that Senna did leads me to strongly believe that, even if by some miracle all the suspension components had missed his head, he still would have hit the wall hard enough to result in a basilar skull fracture, and this almost certainly would have killed him. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Very interesting video. Glad Jackie got his knighthood he save many F1 lives.
The FIA themselves have stated that the halo would not have been likely to be sufficient to protect Bianchi, as it likely would have failed under the impact forces and breached the cockpit.
It's simply not designed for these kinds of forces. Its primary purpose is to deflect debris, such as tyres, not several tons of metal machinery. So, I don't think it's reasonable to conclude it definitely would have saved him, though it is possible it would have significantly reduced the forces he experienced.
th-cam.com/video/AYkGjUHstKY/w-d-xo.html
Cevert’s accident was just unimaginably gruesome, the barrier split him in half, through the torso
Well thankfully he would not have felt anything. Often the more machanicly violent the death the less they feel. I would definitely prefer that to burning to death
It’s really sad how long this video is 😢