March 20, 2016 remains one of those days when Formula 1 scares us, but also demonstrates its continued progress in safety and its determination to always go further. It was 10 years ago during the Australian Grand Prix that Fernando Alonso suffered a shocking crash that is still fresh in his mind.
On lap 17 of the race, the two-time world champion was fighting for 19th place in a poorly performing McLaren Honda. He tried to pass Esteban Gutierrez on the outside of Turn 3, but hit the rear wheel of the Haas car. He was immediately sent towards the exterior wall and, having lost any steering control, the car slid into a patch of grass and gravel and sunk into the ground.
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It then began to roll before coming to rest upside down near a tire guardrail. Alonso quickly crawled out of the wreckage unscathed. Even though he was shaking, he stood up. However, he missed the following Grand Prix due to a pneumothorax and fractured ribs.
F1 was looking for solutions to better protect drivers’ heads when the incident occurred. The Halo, which has been in testing for several months, was first introduced by Ferrari during winter testing that year and was evaluated alongside another device, the Aeroscreen. Faced with the narrow gap Alonso managed to pull away from the McLaren, problems soon arose, prompting those opposed to the halo to criticize the FIA.
Fernando Alonso, McLaren MP4-31, collision
Fernando Alonso, McLaren MP4-31, collision
The governing body naturally launched an investigation into the Spanish driver’s accident, benefiting for the first time from footage captured by the new ultra-high-speed cameras installed on F1 cars since 2015. These significantly contribute to an improved understanding of the effects of halos occurring in this context.
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amazing numbers
Less than three months later, the conclusions were made public. First, there are the shocking numbers. Video recordings combined with data provided by accelerometers reveal the scale of the impact.
At the time of contact with Gutierrez, Alonso was traveling at 313 km/h; when he hit the wall, a lateral deceleration impact of 45G was measured; then a similar 46G impact was recorded during the roll. Within 0.9 seconds, the car was completely suspended in the air. When it landed, the rear of the car experienced a longitudinal acceleration of 20G. As for the famous speed camera, it showed the driver’s head hitting the left side of the headrest twice.
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“What we want to understand is the exact dynamics of the head, neck and shoulders in a high-G collision and how they interact with other parts of the cockpit environment such as head restraints, HANS, seat belts and everything in the space around the driver,” Laurent Mekies, then managing director of the FIA Institute and now Red Bull Racing principal, explained in his report.
“This camera allows us to better understand the exact forces that the head experiences during a given movement, the elongation of the neck, how it interacts with the head restraint, how the latter works and what we need to do for the next generation of cockpits.”
Fernando Alonso’s accident in Melbourne in 2016.
Fernando Alonso’s accident in Melbourne in 2016.
In addition to this important aspect of cockpit safety elements, the FIA will also incorporate its findings into its wider driver head protection study. Governing bodies seek answers wherever they can. There was even a simulation of Alonso’s halo accident. The results published in early 2017 were so encouraging that they even convinced a few drivers.
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“We flipped a chassis with a halo on it,” Mekis explained at the time. “We have Andy Mellor [FIA technical consultant] Going in to assess the worst case scenario and asking him to get out is exactly where Fernando is. Unbelievably, he did it,” Mekis smiles. “So, we think the halo gives the driver space in this case. “
It marks another barrier broken in a long-running effort by the FIA to introduce halo to F1 and then expand it more broadly to other single-seater racing categories. Like this barrier, others fade away, sometimes accompanied by philosophical debates that spark discussion.
Regardless, by the winter of 2018, the new F1 car did indeed debut with the halo. Since then, the existence of this safety device has never been questioned. Just ask the likes of Romain Grosjean.
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Also read:
Honda F1 engine vibration causes Fernando Alonso to ‘lose feeling in limbs’
Fernando Alonso: ’10 years ago I seemed crazy to criticize Honda…’
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