Private footage ©a_bloc - Le Mans 24h 2013 Allan Simonsen #95 Aston Martin Fatal Crash
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2024
- Personal footage from outside Tertre rouge.
Wet track...2 cars spun then Simonsen went off on left side.
Allan Simonsen 1978-2013 - R.I.P
I'm the author of the video. The video is available for free use.
This is to become some of the rarest footage of the crash in all the years to come.
After 8 years, its confirmed rare
For those who are interested to what the French man is saying at 2:05: "Goddamn, the way he crashed, he gotta be shocked.. He really could have died.. But the guy didn't get out of the car..."
Pretty sad, RIP Allan..
I tried to hear what the comentator said but I can't (je suis français)
@@kromskiy. il parle du monsieur en face pas le commentateur
this broke my heart, I was watching live telecast, the minute I saw the damage I knew it was bad...too rapid deceleration, little dissipation and crumpled driver headspace. I was just getting over my own crash
'good' footage. (So to speak). Makes it alot clearer than the TV/onboards. I had no idea an LMP2 had spun also. Guess the paint still had a fair amount of moisture on it. RIP Allan.
Thank you for posting this; it certainly helps paint a better picture of what happened prior to the crash.
RIP Allan :(
R.I.P Allan, it's broke my heart. Er are from the same country (Denmark) and hi was one of my idol's :'(
They really need to put a big fat tire wall covering the entire guard rail up to the turn exit at Tetre Rouge. This is the second big accident into that guard rail in the last few years and it just makes no sense why you wouldn't protect that section when its clear that cars can hit very hard there.
I'm not seeing any replies on here so I'll come in with some clarification.
The reason why the impact was so big is because right behind the guard rail there was a tree. Normally the guard rail is meant to deform and absorb some of the impact but in this case Simonsen hit a tree right on because the rail wasn't able to go anywhere.
These days the trees are cut down or the rail is moved inwards to avoid freak accidents like these.
I recently saw Romain Grosjean's F1 crash from last season and my strong opinion is guard rails have no place on a racetrack. The one Grosjean hit split his car in half.
@@dawnc5797 And the halo saved his life.
@@ethanweeter2732 indeed it did.
Tx for keeping this posted. It was such an enigma because the vid angles were partial. This shows the deceleration impact well. It's important for fans to understand why the tracks get changed after things like this occur
Looks like there's something wrong on this part of the track, multiple cars spinning.
It’s called “curbes”. They are made for drivers not to drive on them, but drivers do drive and therefore spin.
@@cheesebusiness It was perfectly drivable, but at the time the track was beginning to become wet, making the curb slippery and resulting in those spins.
Yeah its called rain
@@minmaxxer paint on the track wos fatal
You are 100% right about why Simonsen's gone off the track, but the way the barrier was set up is the reason why he's died.
thanks to this footage of the crash i can see how it happend,he was obviously trying to avoid the spinning car in front which you cant see in the other vids
No, his car oversteered (to the right) because of the paint and he overcorrected which launched him to the left, towards the barrier. Very sad
@danellisracing35 The ones that don't look to big are often the worst ones. When you see those big wrecks where cars recoil off the barriers and get air they are at least dissipating momentum. That car hit the barrier and just stiffed, no momentum dissipated. It reminds me a lot of the wreck that killed Dale Earnhardt in 2001.
If they kept the gravel trap outside of the Tetre Rouge apex, this most likely wouldn't have happened. Then again, there was a tree behind the barrier which was cut down after Simonsen died in hospital just 3 hours after the crash. Tetre Rouge was also adjusted to be safer, but if only they had made those changes before he would've survived. R.I.P.
yeh and the also should change those curbs by the exit of that corber
Is there any documentary on his life and career?
Whoever approved that barrier is an idiot. Guard rails should not have trees right behind them on a race track. Never, not anywhere around the world.
R.I.P. Allan, you will be remembered as a great racer but foremost a great human being.
From this video it becomes pretty clear that Allan going wide probably was influenced by the cars spinning in front and secondly that he might as well have walked away unscathed. Very unlucky and very sad.
I saw footage from in the car behind him, the rear stepped out, he turned left to correct, the car briefly caught traction propelling the car directly at the barrier in a spin to the left. I believe a tire barrier there may have saved him. later in the race the class leading aston martin crashed in much the same way, fortunately hitting a barrier that was able to absorb much of the energy. such a sad and tragic accident. R.I.P Allan
this includes the in-car footage behind: Crash Allan Simonsen Le Mans 2013 (3 Cams)
That was due to the tree behind
No, his family asked the team (Aston Martin) to continue (I'd speculate whether they would have continued in anyway, but this makes for a nice PR story of course).
The race has been NEVER red flagged (not even after the 1955 accident, but times were a bit different back then).
The problem isn't as much the barrier, as the fact that there are trees right behind it, which greatly limits how much the barrier can go out of shape, to absorb the speed.
Such a shame it took this sad fatal crash for the Club de l'Ouest to realise that putting armco direct against huge trees is a bad idea...
A glancing blow at a severe frontal offset at race speed nobody could survive that. Also explains why the car looks torn up, it was!
Great driver gone too soon that spent manny years here in AUS during the 00’s.
The family even requested Aston Martin keep racing, it was in his honor and although they raced on, everyone had him in their thoughts. He wouldn't have wanted it any other way.
Jeremy Clarkson quote: Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that's what gets you.
Allan smashed into a tree that stood just behind the barriers, which made him becoming stationary.
R.I.P Allan Simonsen .. This is the lap which will never end ..
I still can not believe this is approved by FIA. This is the outside of a very fast corner. What have we got there? A simple autorail right next to a tree. This cost Simonsen his life. Had there been a proper tire wall as there should have been, Simonsen could have walked away himself. Amateurs!
RIP. Tragic footage, but for understanding what happened this is amazing. Was he the fourth or the fifth one to spin out at that corner. Every car that put the left tires on the blue paint spun out the moment they tried to turn right. The insane thing was that a ferrari spun out right in front of him and if you look closely you will see that before Simonsen takes the right hand corer the cars in front of him are THREE wide! Simonsen turns in, gets loose, corrects, spins left......tragedy :(
It's obvious there was something about that blue rumble strip upsetting the cars, and the race organizers need to fix it for the safety of the drivers. In the short 1:22 of this video before Simonson's fatal crash, all three cars whose rear wheels touched the blue strip lost control and spun out. That's unforgivable on the outside edge of a fast portion of track entering a corner. Especially when you don't have sufficient energy absorbing barriers.
And there was enough rain having fallen to make it slick on the curbs and blue paint, but why did Simonsen’s car snap left like it did, while the other two cars that skidded, skidded right (which would make some sense as that corner is a right handed which unwinds onto Mulsanne)?
The barriers had no energy absorption because of a tree. They cut the tree under the yellow even, but why was that missed and why did the race continue when a death occurred on track?
Thanks for posting. Here we can see that he wasn't the only one that had spun there. The main reason could be the slippery part of this corner. RIP Allan
This video is Very interesting - I didn't know there were several spins leading up to his crash - one essentially coming right in front of him. Probably accounted for his evasive action and resulting over correction. What a shame.... Excellent footage of the tragic incident
@Voodoochill It was a combination of the freshly wet conditions, which we know from drivers Ed are the slickest, and the paint. All race cars dipped tires onto the paint, which is slick anyways, and with the freshly wet conditions it was an ice rink. They keep trying to get rid of grass at tracks but at least grass absorbs some moisture unlike painted concrete...
Grass is dangerous in a crash because it creates ruts and does not slow a car in a crash very much. Also, unless it is Astroturf, grass is very slick and dangerous when wet.
In looking at other footage, I believe that there was light drizzle that was causing the cars to spin/crash...
There's oil on the track, so yes it's a fault on the track.
Unfortunately Allan hits the spill in such a way that his car spins 120 degree counterclockwise and he is slammed full force into the barrier with almost full speed.
He was just the unlucky one.
RIP Allan!
My condolences to his family.
It was not just the speed, he hit a tree right behind the guard rail. The tree has no give, so he hit a blunt object with no energy absorption from the car, mainly his head and neck took the impact.
Thank you for that upload. You should send the link of your video to the ACO because then can study what really happened and they can improve the safety of all the driver.
I don't want to see any other crash like that at Le Mans, it's too dreadful...
If I put a dislike, it's only for what happens... I was at the race and when I eared the awful news I was really really sad for Simonsen.
R.I.P. Allan Simonsen
so you had 3 cars spinning at the same place in less than 1 minute before his crash. definitely there was oil in the high speed corner Race Control should have had a Safety car to clean up the corner sadly they didn't and a life was lost.
The apex was wet...
it was raining slightly all day and it was still a most when the race started and the paint is slick when it's dry so even a little amount of moisture makes it even worse so it wasn't oil
Not necessarily oil
it wasn't oil. the tarmac was pretty close to dry but the paint was moist and super slick. there should be a tire wall but even that may not have saved his life. the car hit at almost a 90 degree angle and on the drivers side door. very unlucky.
Still, shouldn't there have been a single yellow flag when the first prototype spun out right between those two postes? If not a red and yellow striped flag? If a car spins, it's either sitting on the track when it recovers or it has to rejoin from off-track at low speed. Would it hurt to call a momentary caution at that poste?
I'm not saying that all race car are left side driven, just that the Astons were left side driven at Le Mans, whatever it's a british team. Allan simonsen was on the left of his car, and he hit on the right side, but what was fatal to him was the G-force, the deceleration from 200km to 0 in less than 1 second.
This is the only video out there, except for the #73 Corvette where you can see the 458 Italia lose it a few cars ahead, causing the oncoming cars to adjust, including Allan's Vantage, just enough slowing down and offline to get him onto the paint, that with any moisture, turns into an ice rink... Not only this, but you can see in this video and the #73 (not the #74) footage that his car got turned all the way around and the impact was on the right side and right rear quarter - all around sad...
like the other guy said, there was a tree right behind the spot he hit it. so the tree pretty much multiplied the intensity of the crash
i remember my dad and I in race control in Australia watching the replay of the start during a red flag and watching this crash on the TV and the whole of Race Control just went silent, it was so scary like it was unbeleivable
that is a sad. its a freak accident too, those curbs on the outside of that turn these yellow curbs are really BIG and really rattles a car hard. If you go wide it fcks you up. Really sad, this should not had happened. RIP Allan
it wasn't freak accident, it was criminal kind of accident. Gross negligence from organizers side, guard rail was placed against the tree. Guard rail is designed to bend and dissipate energy, tree was on way. I dont know if relatives sued organizers, but they should...It was perfectly survivable accident, but that tree...
It's not the ferrari (might have distracted). Its something about the track mid corner. It's not clear if the Ferrari have the same problem. but it's visible on the lmp2 spin and allans because they are filmed all the way through. mid corner something unsettles the cars and the run extra wide. Therefor they hit the blue stripes and spin. Unfortunatly allan doesn't just lock the brakes like the others but tries to save it. This then killed him. he only breaked when he pointed towards the barrier.
There are photos the fan memorial place: skidmarks lead to that, barrier has been changed from the part (I mean after the crash duringh the race) and one of the trees has its bark off.
yes, Aston Martin could have retire all the cars, but Allan family wanted Aston Martin to carry on. so aston martin carried on....the 97 car finished 3rd in GTE. so it was used as a tribute to Allan
He did not make a mistake. When he goes to correct the slide from losing traction on the blue painted surface he was expecting to have less grip he was accelerating to get the car back on track. You can here the engine on the in camera from the corvette behind him. Unfortunately the painted area ended and the spinning tire caught traction suddenly and threw him into the wall. If the painted area was extended by 5 feet there would have been no accident.
I know tyres do that, but it can not be more permanent like SAFER is. It is already quite costly to do the opening & closing (I think at least three times closed & opened, if counting the test day), so I don't think it would be done if it wasn't absolutely needed.
One thing is for sure, those trees are too close. There are now eye witness reports of one of the trees having marks of hitting.
Tire barriers would've helped, but no one can see into the future of every inch of a racing circuit, least of all the magnificent brave souls who don helmet and war paint to do battle for our entertainment. RIP Allan. Such a simple looking accident, much like Senna's. Thanks for posting.
The tree at the guard rail should have not been there. I know in America that is understood as a no no on road courses, but in Europe it might be different.
@@ethanweeter2732 yes brother, I agree..
Dale Earnhart died in a similar fashion. It is not so much the sideways hit or the forward hit. it is the hit on a angle. If you hit at high speed, a wall, on the front right 1/4 it forces your head to move in that direction and stretch the neck in a way it was never intended to stretch. Dale earnhart had no neck restraint, aka a cable connecting the helmet to seat. and his neck broke. However I am not sure what injuries Allan had as I have not read up on it.
He didn't spin because the track was slippery. He spun because he came out of the corner too wide, went over the kerbs and onto the blue painted bit. Painted tarmac is very very slippery when wet(ask any motorcycle driver). The cars that spun off in front of him did exactly the same, but were lucky to go the other way. So you can't blame the marshalls, they did their job. It is just very very unlucky he spun in that direction. If you want to blame anything, blame the blue paint.
I didn't know that corner was that slippery. You see other cars spinning including a Ferrari not far ahead of Simonsen's car. I wonder if he got distracted at all or if the Marshall's could have waved the oily/slippery flag or something. It really heavy heart since you actually see the impact
Yes, history books often cite that as the reason why it was not red flagged, but can you imagine similar accident today and race still continuing? Live on tv? Probably not...
I think the rear left tire caught the curve hardly and it was wet causing the car to instant steer to the left after the wheels had spin.
At this point and in many other parts of the track tyre barriers are out of the question: any crash into them, and the tyres and car spins back to the racing line which potentially causes much worse consequences than the initial crash.
My heart beat goes faster watching this... damn, he was so young
thank you for that video, i hate watching this, but it hurt even more not knowing how it actually started
Hi Deggis4, thats not true, im not making anything up! my friend is one of the main sponsors for their team, and a friend of Allan. I know he hit on the right side, but its the G-force from the side, which have caused his main arteries to burst, and the internal bleeding is supposed to have taken his life.
From what we were told on the radio while down there (just got home to DK 20 mins ago) the curbs were still damp from the rain that had been just before the race, and therefore they were slippery, however as soon as he countersteered his wheels got grip from getting back on the dry track, which catapulted him in the most unfortunate direction possible :( such bad luck!
treacherous conditions. He was the at least the fourth car to spin from putting the left tires on the blue paint. He just corrected sooner, probably because a ferrari was still spinning near the apex, and two other cars made it three wide in the corner.....a total cluster f*ck in the corner!
RIP......I've watched far worse crashes where drivers easily walked away, but every once in awhile that perfectly horrible angle of impact occurs. Many legends have fallen as victim to such tragedy.....
Why is this marked as spam? It WAS a legitimate statement. MiguelMRB answered it very well.
Sorry, may have read your original comment wrong... but still, as long as the official investigation has not been published, these things are just guesses and rumors. :)
It's slightly off topic, but I just want to say something a friend pointed out to me just yesterday. Can you imagine what would have happened if they actually had red flagged the race after the tragic accident in 1955? So many people trying to get away from the track at the same moment there were so many ambulances needed to get _to_ the track, and also many people trying to get near the site of the accident to see for themselves what was going on. That would have been a major problem.
Looking at the crash again, I can see what you mean. The car gets bumped right back with more or less the same speed it had, when it collided head-on against the barrier. Extremely tragic this video is.
It looked like he's left wheels hit the white lines. I don't know if this is the area where they recently painted the lines, even if its not. I think its time that more money should be spent on the development of a more porous type of paint or something that provides better grip. Many cars spun on the lines in this race and in motorbike racing white lines prove to be an even greater hazard.
Hearing the first of the Aston Martin V8s is sad knowing what happened next
First of all RIP to Allan Simonsen, I didn't see the crash live and didn't realise till now that a car spun in front of him, that clearly distracted his attention for a fatal second. A lot of discussion about the barriers, yes I agree that "safer" barriers may have saved him but by the looks of it he hit side on, the worst possible way. Cars do not regularly go off there its not an accident hot spot, a reminder though in this age of complacency, motorsport is still dangerous.
The guy in front with the camera seems to be missing everything
He hit the wall on the right side of the car, in my opinion he would have survived since you say he was driving on the left side. But then this occurs me, if you say in WEC they are left side driven, why are Nissan's GT-R's right side driven then? It's a race car too.
Never saw it from this angle, im shocked!
there is nothing shocking.
RIP
something was really wrong at that spot. Oil spill? Wet paint??
I was at the main straight when this happened. So, I only have second hand knowledge. From all the footage available it seems that the massive decelaration caused fatal injuries to his organs. He hit the guardrail and a tree with the right rear of his car. That way there was almost no energy-absorbing-structure in place. The momentum went right through the car and poor Allan's body. You can see that by the fact that the left door was detached upon the impact on the right hand side.
Both doors detached and the roll cage deformed. If the roll cage deforms, that means it was a hellacious hit.
Damn. Just a wet track and he hit in the worst possible place.
If he didnt try to avoid it,the "RIP" might go to the ferrari driver.It is such a rediculious fact that in the past three years,all the serious accidents were caused by ferrari.
While I deeply admire Aston Martin's decision to block their website for the entire weekend after the crash, in a posthumous tribute to Allan Simonsen, I think you rely on the fact that it gave them massive publicity and goodwill with both present and future customers.
Which side was driven on that Aston? Left or right?
It's the same material at the edge of a curb on every FIA circuit. It is unavoidably slippery when wet and drivers should know not to run such a corner wide. Of course racing is racing but 10/10s is always to do it, especially on a corner like that when the tiniest lift going in can save you those few inches of extra curb. However I do agree with your barrier argument. Now that I see how the accident actually occurred I'm quite angry that no one thought to put tire barriers there.
The crash seems utterly violent, he lost the left door, without it being hit by anything! I took pictures of this car myself in Spa about a month ago...
To me the official shows the damage which is really broken up state but this makes it clear what happened
Are you sure? Aston Martins are from United Kingdom, they drive on the right side.
Intet giver familien her og nu Allan Simonsen tilbage, men dette klip er en vigtig dokumentation, for netop familien, af at det var banens beskaffenhed og ikke Allan Simonsen´s skyld, at ulykken kunne ske.
R.I.P. :( from italy
Forgot to say: R.I.P. great Dane! We all share the same dream on both sides of the catch-fence.
They say he didn't die at the impact. But one of his main pulses, bursted. so he diet very quick after the crash.
He hits the wall at over 205 kmh - the problem is the fact that he hits on the side of the aston! That's what killed him, all his guts and arteries get smashed - if he had hit frontal or on the rear, he would hopefully have lived. you can survive a 300kmh head on crash in that aston, but sideway crashes are the worst fear of any race driver. RIP Allan
Obviously he didn't veer left, but lost control of the car as it lost traction to the rear wheels. Once a car loses traction like that, especially at speed, it makes little difference what steering input you give it.
You are making up stuff. The right side of the car got hit, but he sata on the left side, as it is a left-hand drive car.
Problem is the car did not disintigrate enogugh. By disintegrating energy spreads all over. If the car stays more or less intact than all the energy from impact goes directly into a driver
For example McNish crash from 2011 looked horrible car disintegrated in pieces but driver survived w/o a scratch.
However in the Jovi Marcello, Dale earnhardt and Gonzalo Rodriguez fatal crashes the car did not disintigrate -and driver died. Same thing happened in Allan Simonsen crash.
This part is part of the public roads, something like SAFER is out of the question as they have to removed and reinstalled between the test/practice/qualifying sessions when they roads open for public. Just some tyre walls might have helped in this case.
a simple tyre barrier would save his life.
The barrier had no give, supposedly because a tree was behind it. What would be worse, hitting a soft, cushy tire barrier at 200 miles an hour or hitting a concrete wall at 90? :/
Mr. Simonsen apparently spoke to the rescue crew before losing consciousness;
there is speculation that the cause of death was transection of the aorta,
caused by sudden deceleration forces.
Damn, you could hear the impact even from that distance ;u;
Was that a right-hand drive?
You don't have to understand it, everyone with a passion for motor racing knows why the show went on. We honour our fallen by doing what they did best: race, even if the heart is heavy. Not because we don't care, but because we wouldn't want the race stopped if any of us died either.
there was clearly fluid on that part of the track. You could see a few cars getting loose and the two spins prior. He tried to evade it by going left off the track but the fluid caused him to lose traction. not trying to point fingers but they need to change the rules in marathon racing. Official should be trained to recognize these things and throw full course cautions. They do it in Nascar all the time. Either way R.I.P. Prayers to the family and friends.
plus the gurdrail was right up against a tree (which is where he hit) and that didnt allow for the guardrail to deform
Sideways G-forces are the hardest for the human body to cope with. The aorta rips loose and you bleed heavily internally. This is probably what happened to Allan, as he slipped sideways into the barricade with 180-200 km/h.
What a bad and slow signaling Situation! Only @ the 20th car is slowing down a tiny bit.
That blue paint on the Track and that tree are the killers.
RIP.
Its because its on the side, the car is made for front crashes and less weight as possible
This is an accident that should never have killed him. The ACO have major questions to answer.
I agree with the tire barrier. $1000 would be all it took.
Never!? What about Jochen Rindt, Dale Earnhardt, or Pierre Levegh? Or the hundreds of others who have died in motorsport on the track.
R.I.P Allan S. En ny stjerne er kommet på himlen !!!