The Halo is doing a lot of the hard work!
The car went through the barrier, at least the front half. All the force of that would have transferred directly into Romain’s head. It’s crazy how strong the Halo must be.
Pretty crazy scenes.
https://twitter.com/bonzomassimo/status/1333059828198072325?s=21
This uncut helicopter shot shows the reaction of the stewards and safety car. Pretty nuts.
The most miraculous thing really is Romain’s ability to save himself. Crash at high speed. Stay conscious. Get your bearings. Escape the car, seatbelts, or whatever’s left of them. He’s in that fire for a good 20+ seconds, and escapes well before the point at which anyone was going to go into the fire to pull him out.
Romain, from hospital, retracts his prior disagreement with the Halo, and credits it with saving his life.
Another factor was this year’s upgraded fire suits. Previous suits were rated for 10 seconds, current suits are rated for 20, and there’s little question it saved his life, or at the very least, saved him from extremely serious injury.
Per my previous post, it seems the rating is accurate.
Relatively, yeah. It took him 18 seconds to get out of the car, according to footage, and his only burns are on his hands and ankles, which are both weaker points in the suit(Gloves and ankles aren’t as protected for the purpose of mobility), and where he touched things getting out(they’re proximity suits, but they won’t stop you getting burned from touching hot metal for very long.) He still had a few seconds left in his suit, but past 20s, his chances of serious injury get a lot higher, and then higher again after about 25 as the suit starts failing.
That suit and the halo absolutely saved his life.
This is just one more example of why safety has to be forced into sports over the will of both fans and players.
Pre-Halo, he wouldn’t have lived to change his mind. He’d just be dead and the sport would just carry on.
Absolutely. Every time from now on anyone says anything along the lines of “nanny state” I’m bringing up this example. We are morally obligated to protect such fools from themselves. If you don’t like it, tough shit.
Whoops!
I think this means we’ll have two replacement drivers for Sunday. Haas already have their driver lined up. I think Stoffel Vandoorne is the default Mercedes reserve driver.
Oooh, George Russell is replacing Hamilton for this weekend. Maybe he can score his first championship points!
Haas has hired Nikita Mazepin as a driver for next season. Mazepin is the failson of russian oligarch, a racist, sexist, homophobic piece of shit. He now has posted a video of himself groping a woman on instagram, and Haas is now trying to put out the fire.
Also, apparently he’s a shit driver (see thread):
He already has 11 penalty points on his race license. If you reach 12 you get a race ban. And he’s starting his F1 career in that state. I don’t envy the Haas team that has to deal with him.
Did they not know? Did they know and pick him anyway?
It doesn’t seem like there’s a dearth of talented drivers you could snag from F2.
I think the “son of a russian oligarch” bit has had a major part of why they picked him up.
“When will Lewis Hamilton get a knighthood?” is the kind of question that can consume an entire hour long radio show in the UK. And now that question is answered.
My top 10 Formula 1 cars of 2021!!!
Mercedes keep up with anti-racism-awareness black car, with a new fade to silver on the fin. However, I prefer the three pointed star pattern of Mercedes rather than the AMG logo. The red Ineos section feels like it’s from another car though, as the Petronas blue remains as the main accent colour. Thankfully Mercedes is classy enough that they make it work.
My rating: 4 stars.
Normally Red Bull do a special paint job for the launch and testing, reverting to the more traditional look for the start of the seasons, which I always find disappointing. This year they skipped right to the “Red Bull looks like a Red Bull” stage, which is somehow more disappointing. It’s just a Red Bull.
My rating: 2.5 stars.
Unlike Racing Point, which I kept calling Force India for an entire year, I think I’ll have way less trouble calling this an Aston Martin. It’s fun to have another team try out British Racing Green! And somehow, I’d not sure how, the BWT pink accent colour doesn’t ruin it. I’m into it.
My rating: 4.5 stars.
One of these McLarens is the 2020 car, and the other is the 2021 car. Which is which? Who knows? Did their designers all take a year off? Boring! Thankfully there aren’t other orange cars this year, so at least they’ll stand out on track.
My rating: 3 stars.
Alfa Romeo have changed their car from “red and white” to “white and red”, pretty much an inverted colour swap from last year. But I quite like the design, with the cross and dragon logo given so much space.
My rating: 4 stars.
Alpha Tauri is very similar to last year, but with the blue covering the entire top and front of the car. This is great for watching the race, as it’s one less “mostly white with some colours that you can’t make out at a glance” car to keep straight. There’s also no mistaking this for a Red Bull.
My rating: 3 stars.
Alpine. Blue. You know how many yellow cars there were on track last year? Just the Renaults! You know how many blue cars there are this year? I hope this Bleu de France is enough blue to stand out. And in case we didn’t get the BLUE = FRANCE message, they added French flags. I’m not against it, but somehow I’m less excited for it than I expected. Still, I think it’s a solid design.
My rating: 3.5 stars.
Williams. No wait… Haas? Turns out, if you paint a Haas with the Russian flag, it looks like a Williams from 2020. It combines “Boring Race Car” with “Russian Oligarch is Buying the Team Next Year”, which is almost impossible to cheer for.
My rating: 1.5 stars.
Williams also went with blue. It’s not bad, and hopefully not too similar to Renault. Having so few prominent sponsors makes the livery stand out more, and it mostly holds up.
My rating: 2.5 stars.
Ferrari have their usual mix of Italian red with their yellow logo and other yellow sponsor logos… plus a big GREEN thing on the top? Apparently this was just for the car launch, and the green MW is going away for the actual races. My biggest issue is the now the back of the car, with the fade to deeper red. It looks like it has been dipped in something wet, or, to be less kind, it looks like the car has pissed its self.
My rating: 2 stars.
I think the collection of 2021 will work pretty well as a group. My only concerns for the “at a glance” test are Williams vs Alpine and Haas vs Alfa Romeo. Alpha Tauri covering up their white front end takes one problem off the table, for sure.
And we got British Green, French Blue, Italian Red and American White… if Mercedes had stuck with silver we could have had half the grid running national colours.
I might be biased or nostalgic for the return of British Racing Green, but with so many other mostly red/mostly white/mostly blue cars, green and orange will always make me happy. Pink is now available again, as is the previously used Haas-brown. Purple should work too. Why doesn’t the FIA make the smaller teams use unique colours? Just from an accessibility standpoint it would be a big win, along with the branding opportunities. Sigh.
I just want to say that the image composition here is hilarious
