Here is a good angle of it, that scaffold was the perfect thing to hit at that speed and angle, it really absorbed the energy well and didn't break her neck. Reminds me of how Greg Moore went into the wall tiny rollbar first at Fontana but that unfortunately did not give.
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/9y6sdw/another_angle_of_macau_gp_crash/
The initial contact
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=10&v=1Yp8MGD-2y4
Hopefully all photographers and marshals are okay.
Adam
If he/she got the shot, the photographers in that booth are gonna have a hell of an image once they get out of the hospital. F3 car flying through the air directly at the camera at 100mph...
In reply to dean1484 :
Ouch. That one Marshall appeared to either get hit by the fence, or some other piece of debris, then it looked like the back of the car landed on them.
Ya tough to tell. The car kind of rotated due to the nose being on the wall.
I liked that waving red meant just slow down a little and get into formation and come on back in.
In reply to glueguy :
I thought the same thing, red flags mean stop (don’t they?)
In reply to z31maniac :
When marshals like myself are having to avoid flying cars from the track, that is a major issue. With the deaths at Isle of Mann, they are not in a tightly packed street circuit with marshals, fans, and photog all feet from the car/bike. They are not putting fans and volunteers at risk. If the riders want to take their own lives into risk, That is their business. They know what the risk is and they have signed up for it.
That area is not fit for racing. It's too tight, no run off room and any incident causes a major event. They repeat this year in year out. I've been to Macau and there is just not an area there that they should run a race in.
In reply to paranoid_android :
No, in FIA Reg, a waving red means slow to a crawl and go directly to the pits. They all did the right procedures for the situation.
One of the problems with humanity in general is that it's so easy to quantify death and so difficult to quantify suffering that if noone dies we just gloss over the effects in suffering from certain types of injuries that branch out into the future over the span of decades.
"Noone was killed". Oh, good. Next!
I clicked on a video of the accident on Facebook and didn't know what I was looking at then WHAM, the car flies by and hits the scaffolding. It was a shocking thing to see and I can't believe the driver survived. If I'm not mistaken, the Macau circuit has been around a long, long time and I suspect it is still allowed to exist because of the history. You can never make a track death proof but you should at least try to make them death resistant and I don't think Macau comes close to that standard. How many parents (especially of girls) are going to let their teenager race open wheel after seeing this crash? The FIA needs to take another look at the safety of their circuits.
In reply to loosecannon :
Macau exists as a racing circuit due to the amount of money there. The street circuit itself is insanely tight and miserable for the drivers.
I hope this accident and others from earlier this year help the FIA decide the money isn’t worth it and they drop it.
dean1484 said:This is the best view I have seen showing the energy being dissipated.
Damn. Maybe the best possible result.........if such a thing is even possible. It was like she was shot from a gun.
In reply to Stefan :
The safety concerns are real and justified. In fact there's actually a section of the Macau track that is permanently under yellow. The track is so narrow and the speeds are so high at that point that that the organizers though it was too dangerous to race through.
The prestige and money is wonderful but when we see massive pileups in the touring car races and future stars getting seriously hurt in big open wheel crashes, you can't help but think that something needs to change.
bmw88rider said:In reply to z31maniac :
When marshals like myself are having to avoid flying cars from the track, that is a major issue. With the deaths at Isle of Mann, they are not in a tightly packed street circuit with marshals, fans, and photog all feet from the car/bike. They are not putting fans and volunteers at risk. If the riders want to take their own lives into risk, That is their business. They know what the risk is and they have signed up for it.
That area is not fit for racing. It's too tight, no run off room and any incident causes a major event. They repeat this year in year out. I've been to Macau and there is just not an area there that they should run a race in.
Have you ever watched Isle of Man?
racerfink said:bmw88rider said:In reply to z31maniac :
When marshals like myself are having to avoid flying cars from the track, that is a major issue. With the deaths at Isle of Mann, they are not in a tightly packed street circuit with marshals, fans, and photog all feet from the car/bike. They are not putting fans and volunteers at risk. If the riders want to take their own lives into risk, That is their business. They know what the risk is and they have signed up for it.
That area is not fit for racing. It's too tight, no run off room and any incident causes a major event. They repeat this year in year out. I've been to Macau and there is just not an area there that they should run a race in.
Have you ever watched Isle of Man?
Yeah, must have forgotten all the "in town" part of the racetrack. Or what about like, every rally race on the planet?
I'm not sure why this track is drawing so much ire. The people attending the race don't have to go if they feel it's too dangerous.
Thankfully they didn't shut down LeMans in 1955......
So terribly sorry for everyone involved and wishing everyone a full and speedy recovery.
Having said that, with all due respect to bmw88rider and other marshals or people who know more than me. Why and how is this track more dangerous than Monaco, Singapore or any other tight street circuit in the heart of an old city? Also, how is this worse than a super speedway. We've all seen what can and has happened on superspeedways? Not trolling, it's a serious question. Think what happened to Wickens, or what could have happened to Dixon last year at Indy, let alone the numerouse people who have lost their lives or been permanently and severely injured. Think about the number of places where cars are right next to catch fencing with solid barriers right behind them. Heck, what about Dario's carrer ending shunt with Taku a few years ago in Texas. I'm not arguing that that these instances are the same, or that these tracks are any more or less safe than MAcau, I genuinly don't know.
As an aside, the massive crash last year at Mecau that blocked the circuit was in the FIA GT race which is a GT3 series with a combination of pro and gentleman drivers. Those cars are bigger, heavier and it takes a whole lot fewer of them to cause a massive blockage.
P.S. I see eight motorcycle deaths at the Macau GP spanning 1973 to 2017. The only car fatalities I see were 1967 when safety was pretty much non existent for car, circuit or driver. There was also a tin top death of Phillip Yau Wing-choi in 2012 , but that was I believe due to fire with the vehicle coming to rest on the track. Tragic, but fire can and does happen at all tracks, so I'm not sure that it can be attributed to the circuit.
bmw88rider said:In reply to z31maniac :
When marshals like myself are having to avoid flying cars from the track, that is a major issue. With the deaths at Isle of Mann, they are not in a tightly packed street circuit with marshals, fans, and photog all feet from the car/bike. They are not putting fans and volunteers at risk. If the riders want to take their own lives into risk, That is their business. They know what the risk is and they have signed up for it.
That area is not fit for racing. It's too tight, no run off room and any incident causes a major event. They repeat this year in year out. I've been to Macau and there is just not an area there that they should run a race in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmNXCJt7K3Q
You're correct. There are not people literally standing on the side of the road next to vehicles going in excess of 100mph.
Count me in the group who just don't "get" the appeal of the city street races with ZERO runoff space and lined with Jersey barriers (or similar). When I run racing simulators, I absolutely hate those races. If I won the Powerball tomorrow and took up gentleman racing for E36 M3s and giggles, I'd skip anything that took place in a city like this. Give me a purpose built race track every single time.
I think the driver, no matter what sex they are, is very fortunate to be alive. The news reports seem to focus on the fact that it was a female driver. In my mind, that plays no part in the accident. All the drivers are F3 caliber, professional drivers. The track, for what my mind says, is very much out dated. When you compare it to Monaco or Singapore as has been stated by Adrian_Thompson, it is my uneducated belief (I haven't been to any of these tracks) is that the street circuits in those city states, are upgraded regularly. I haven't heard of any upgrades, updates widening or runoff changes being made to the Macau track.
Racing is inherently dangerous, we all acknowledge that and there have been great strides made in the name of safety for the drivers today. When we hear about huge accidents at one track every year, I think that is when the racing community as a whole needs to come together and work on a way to make it safer or unfortunately shut it down until it can be brought up to a standard that is acceptable or comparable to other facilities of the same type.
I am glad that the driver survived and that the support workers are as well.
Just my thoughts.
KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:Count me in the group who just don't "get" the appeal of the city street races with ZERO runoff space and lined with Jersey barriers (or similar). When I run racing simulators, I absolutely hate those races. If I won the Powerball tomorrow and took up gentleman racing for E36 M3s and giggles, I'd skip anything that took place in a city like this. Give me a purpose built race track every single time.
I am with you on this. Simulator wise, they are no fun. No runoff, generally narrow and very hard to pass. In real life, for spectators, not a good experience. At best you might see two corners. I have no idea why someone would go to one of these races and sit in the stands for the whole race. I guess it just a spectacle and sound thing.
Macau is currently an FIA grade III track, that means it's legal for cars with a power to weight ration of 2-3kg per hp, or in oldfashioned units 4.4-6.6 lb's/hp. NExt year F3 is finally following the rest of the global formula series and moving to a spec vehicle (Boo, hiss) with the current 450hp(ish) GP3 engine and they will either need to add weight to the chassis OR re-certify the track to FIA Grade 2 status which is for 1-2Kg/hp or 2.2-4.4 lb's/hp. They are not going to add weight to cars so they were/are planning on making some as yet unspecified changes to the track and re-certifying. I'm sure this incident will make them have a loser look again. But note, they were/are planning on running faster cars next year.
Don't forget the race has been going on since 1954 and has been the world premier F3 event since 1983. There was talk of making it F2 when they switched to F3, but deemed F2 cars too fast at the time.
I am not trying to be funny, but that looked like a video game crash. Glad to hear everyone survived.
KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:Count me in the group who just don't "get" the appeal of the city street races with ZERO runoff space and lined with Jersey barriers (or similar). When I run racing simulators, I absolutely hate those races. If I won the Powerball tomorrow and took up gentleman racing for E36 M3s and giggles, I'd skip anything that took place in a city like this. Give me a purpose built race track every single time.
Yeah, me too. I watched Jim Fitzgerald die on the street circuit at St. Petersburg, and that was enough to turn me off to that kind of track permanently.
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