Feature: Romain Grosjean’s big crash
Romain Grosjean’s crash at the Bahrain Grand Prix was one of the most horrifying accidents in the past 30 years. We break it down moment by moment
On the opening lap of the Bahrain Grand Prix in November, Romain Grosjean’s Haas smashed through the crash bar‐ rier, split in two and burst into flames. The Frenchman walked away, minus a shoe, with burns to his hands. Miraculously, apart from shock, he was otherwise unaffected.
Grosjean’s survival was a tribute to the con‐ stant search for improved driver protection even though the accident itself underlined the stark truism that motor racing can never be completely safe. Yet, it did not prevent a thor‐ ough investigation into scenes that would not have been out of place in a disaster movie. Indeed, had this been a film’s storyline, the driver’s survival would have been dismissed as pure fantasy.
Grosjean had been running at the back as the field emerged from the first sequences of corners and began to accelerate hard. Seeing a number of skirmishes ahead and one car sud‐ denly running wide on the left, Grosjean im‐ mediately moved right as a precaution, without realising Daniil Kvyat’s Alpha Tauri was coming alongside.
The short, sharp impact of Grosjean’s rightrear wheel with Kvyat’s left-front flicked the Haas onto its short but fast trip towards the triple-layer Armco. The metalwork was unpro‐ tected by either the latest Tecpro barrier or piles of tyres, the belief being that a violent accident was not anticipated at this point … a theory which proved racing security should always be prepared for the unexpected.
With barely any time to get on the brakes, Grosjean hit the metal wall at 220 km/h, creat‐ ing a momentary force of 53 G. This colossal impact punched through the gap between the lower barriers, swallowing the front of the car. The halo above Grosjean’s head forced the metal apart and, in the process, saved the driver’s life – thus far.
Striking the barrier at an angle, the nose became embedded, leaving the heavier rear portion of the Haas (weighing approximately 500 kg) to pivot around the stationary front and wrench itself from the chassis behind the cockpit, exposing the fuel cell in the process. Combined with the dead weight of 110 kg in the tank (which would have been brimful thanks to Bahrain allowing the highest fuel consumption of any F1 track), the impact tore away part of the filler hatch. The Kevlar tank was not penetrated but there was enough stray fuel to ignite – possibly through contact with a hot battery pack – and create an imme‐ diate inferno.
The fireball engulfed the survival cell which, although jammed against the back of the bar‐ rier, remained largely undamaged and had done its job magnificently. Grosjean was not initially aware of the fire and his first thought was to wait for rescue. But that plan changed instantly when he saw the flames and his hel‐ met visor began to melt.
“I tried to go up but found myself stuck,”
recalled Grosjean. “I tried to go up a bit more on the right, it doesn’t work, go on the left, doesn’t work so I sit back down and thought about Niki Lauda, his accident (the fiery crash when the Ferrari driver had life-threatening burns during the 1976 German Grand Prix), thought it couldn’t end like this. No way. So I try again. Then there’s the less pleasant mo‐ ment where my body starts to relax, I’m in peace with myself and I’m going to die.
“Then,” continued Grosjean, “I think about my kids, and I say, ‘No they cannot lose their Dad today.’ So, I don’t know why I did what I did but I decided to turn my helmet on the lefthand side and to go up like this and try and twist my shoulder. That sort of works but then I realise my foot is stuck in the car so I sit back down, pull as hard as I can on my left, my foot came out of the shoe, and then I do it again and the shoulders are going through and I know I’m going to jump out. I feel the pain, my hands are on fire but I also feel relief that I am out of the car. Then I go on the barrier and feel someone pulling on my overall, so I know I am not on my own any more.”
The medical car, driven by South Africa’s Alan van der Merwe and crewed by the FIA’S medical delegate, Dr Ian Roberts, had followed the usual first lap procedure of tailing the field. Because the accident occurred shortly after the start, the official car was not far behind to lend assistance.
Faced with the blaze and black smoke caused by a battery setting alight, it was diffi‐ cult for the crew to work out where the driver was, never mind how this had happened. Roberts instructed the marshal to direct his extinguisher through the barrier towards the base of the fire, briefly creating enough of a gap in the flames to see Grosjean miraculously appear and climb on top of the barrier. Roberts stepped into the scorching heat, grabbed Gros‐ jean’s arm and guided him onto the ground, Van der Merwe assisted, using a fire extin‐ guisher. They hurried over to the medical car, where Roberts carried out an initial assess‐ ment before whisking Grosjean to the medical centre to establish his injuries were remark‐ ably light.
“The whole scene was pretty amazing,” said Van der Merwe. “It just goes to show all the systems that we’ve developed, everything worked hand in hand: the halo, the barriers, the seatbelts. Everything worked how it should and without just one of those things, it could have been a very different outcome.”
While Grosjean’s seat harness held his body in place, the HANS device played a big part in preventing potentially fatal head and neck in‐ juries. The collar – which attaches to the hel‐ met and fits around the neck – is designed for frontal crashes where the car comes to a sud‐ den stop and the head is thrust forward with immense energy; enough, as proved in the past, to result in fatalities.
It was also noted that Grosjean’s Bell crash helmet had performed perfectly and preven‐ ted the intrusion of smoke and fumes. (Most of the air a driver breathes enters through ventil‐ ation ducts containing filters. At high speed, air is forced in. When the car is at rest, air enters through the open visor.) Dr Roberts later confirmed that prevention of issues with his airways had allowed Grosjean to remain lucid and think clearly as he made his escape. Had he been unconscious, Grosjean’s chances would have been severely reduced by the inab‐ ility of his rescuers to extract him from a cock‐ pit engulfed in flames and wedged against the metal barrier.
Questions about the barrier parting were countered by the view that it would be im‐ possible for any such protection to withstand such a violent impact. In any case, the partial destruction of the metalwork had carried out the vital job of absorbing the huge forces. It was argued that impact with a concrete wall would have resulted in the energy being trans‐ mitted largely through the chassis, and there‐ fore the driver.
Nonetheless, there were unique lessons to be learnt. No simulation or crash laboratory is likely to ever reproduce an accident of such spectacular magnitude.