So, anyone doubting the efficacy of the safety of the current design of cars and tracks?

I thought that after Kubica's crash in Montreal last year, but Kovaleinen's yesterday was even worse (the in-camera view is particularly terrifying).

It may well be the only thing that Bernie and Max have gotten right, but it is far from unimportant.

Yeah. I completely forgot to start a thread on the fortieth anniversary of Jim Clark's utterly unnecessary death earlier this month.

Clark is always the first to come to my mind at times like these and I'm sure he was foremost in Jackie Stewart's mind when Stewart said how lucky Kovaleinen was to be alive.

The cars particularly are hugely impressive in this regard. I also think that the HANS device is quite an unsung hero, especially in accidents like Kovalainen's, which feature sudden and massive deceleration.

It also proves that there's an enormous amount of providence at work every time someone has a big one. So much depends on variables - what corner, where, angle of impact, speed - that luck can never be discounted as another major factor. It's the reason that the FIA have taken the sensible attitude that they can never make anything TOO safe. Their tirelessness in this area has saved a pair of legs (at the very least) once again.

The biggest accident I've ever seen someone walk away from, incidentally, was Katherine Legge's at the Champ Car Grand Prix of Road America in 2006.

That's very true, another one I thought of last night was Earnhart.

Ursus minor and I go to Monza at least twice a year (once for the Grand Prix and on other occasions for "lesser" races) and have never seen anything remotely serious. I don't think I'd feel right about taking him if we were still in the pre-Senna world.

Crikey.

UA, did you get the chance to hear Stirling Moss's tribute to Fangio the other day? It's available as a podcast.

She's in the "fuselage" that cartwheels, but my oh my.

GO, no I haven't seen it. Where was it?

It's here on the Beeb, under Great Lives.

The part of the car she's in is the exact right part, the survival cell. It's another good example of the car doing exactly what its designed to do when the shit hits the fan. Everything breaks off to dissipate the crash energy and the driver remains in the confines of the monocoque.

Of course, an accident like that in a European series would look more spectacular still, as what you have to remember is that the US single seaters run on Methanol, which burns with an invisible flame.

A wet Monaco. Excellent.

Do you not have red lights in the UK?

That was funny, wasn't it. Maybe they should add a few more examples of urban driving to spice up Formula 1. How about random cyclists, u-turning black cabs, unloading lorries and rows of consecutive bendy-buses all sprinkled throughout a race...

Speed bumps. It needs speed bumps. And yes, bendy buses stopped in box junctions.

We've already got speed bumps:



and there are at least two bus stops marked on the pavement in Monte Carlo, so all they need to do is add the bendy buses.

...And two-way traffic, so that the cars have to swerve out into each other's path in order to negotiate a cyclist.

They wouldn't have to indicate while doing so, either - just to make it more like 'real-life'.

</righteous indignation>

And forty years after Jim Clark's death, Timo Glock shows us how much car safety has moved on :



Oh, and Hamilton proves that it is still possible to overtake...