Seb Buemi's Chinese GP practice incident

[tchanson]

This is some pretty frightening video. Sebastien Buemi in the Toro Rosso, practice session for the China GP.

Catastrophic suspension failure, reportedly due to a bumpy track surface. So much for wheel tethers.


Tim

[MT930]

Wow!!!

Pretty Lucky, Catastrophic failure maybe an understatement.

[Talewinds]

Holy hell!

[URY914]

All he could do was hold on.

[GH85Carrera]

Wow, it's a good thing that did not happen in the race.

[NO LIFT]

Too bad the steering didn't work after the wheels fell off, maybe he could have kept it out of the fence.

[rsNINESOOPER]

yeah I liked the "instinct" to counter steer for the slide despite the lack of front tires and then holding his hands up when impacting the wall. How is this type of failure even possible?

[Heel n Toe]

Is it just me, or does this remind anyone else of something happening to Wile E. Coyote?

[BGCarrera32]

That looks like a gross materials failure; something along the lines of improperly cured CF epoxy for instance which had the appearance of being cured properly- but in actuality only had some fraction of its design strength.

Somebody messed up...

[legion]

This just seems to me to be more evidence that Adrian Newey's cars are fragile.

[BGCarrera32]

Or after watching it again a gross metallurgical failure of the wheel hubs...

[fumanchu]

Word is that Torro Rosso used a new material for the uprights. Fail! You know, the limited testing or no testing F1 has in place currently may have some safety issues to it.

This is an ultra competitive series and teams push the boundaries to win at all costs.... even taking risk for the drivers lives. I always thought that they should allow testing based on the constructors points of the previous year. The winning constructors get the least amount of testing while the lowest points teams get the most testing time. May level the playing field a bit and improve the show. Sorry for the rant, but that video is pretty scary. Did you see Seb get pissed at his team for that one too!

[URY914]

Balsa wood uprights. They worked on all the other corners....

[VincentVega]

Scary incident. All things considered it could have been so much worse, glad he's ok.

limited testing or no testing F1 has in place currently may have some safety issues to it.

No kidding. How are they expected to try new stuff w/o testing? This is what can happen.

[pwd72s]

bet you couldn't have driven a pin up his butt with a 12 pound sledge hammer.

[Geronimo '74]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

bet you couldn't have driven a pin up his butt with a 12 pound sledge hammer.

You're probably right, I'll take you're word for it...

[teenerted1]

Originally Posted by NO LIFT

Too bad the steering didn't work after the wheels fell off, maybe he could have kept it out of the fence.

last night when i saw this i was thinking the same thing.
i was wondering who told him to keep his hands on the wheel in a situation like this? don't they tell open wheeled oval drivers to take your hands off the wheel in situations like this? you don't want to loose a thumb from the impact yanking the wheel from your hands

[nostatic]

You can see him take his hands off at the end. They are taught/told to take their hands off, but instinct is to try and save it. You don't exactly get to practice 2 wheels off the vehicle, so in most cases of some failure you still have some degree of control (or hope you do) and will try to save right up until impact.

[Seahawk]

That is like a loss of tail rotor thrust in a helo in a hover...they teach you to do a few things to keep your mind off the impending crash.

Originally Posted by nostatic

You can see him take his hands off at the end. They are taught/told to take their hands off, but instinct is to try and save it. You don't exactly get to practice 2 wheels off the vehicle, so in most cases of some failure you still have some degree of control (or hope you do) and will try to save right up until impact.

[David]

I sure am glad they're saving money by not testing!