F1 INSIDER
Grosjean crash inquiry launched; engine war latest
Motorsport’s governing body will conduct a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding Romain Grosjean’s dramatic accident on the first lap of the Bahrain Grand Prix. It will focus on the effectiveness of all the safety provisions – from the car itself to the driver’s personal safety equipment, the barriers, the marshals and the Medical Car – and identify areas for improvement.
“As with all serious accidents, we will analyse every aspect of this crash and collaborate with all parties involved,” said FIA safety director Adam Baker. “With so much data available in F1, it allows us to accurately determine every element of what occurred, and this work has already begun. We take this research very seriously and will follow a rigorous process to find out exactly what happened before proposing potential improvements.”
The Haas team and the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association (of which Grosjean is a director) will also be involved in the investigation. FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer and head of competitor safety Nuno Costa began by spending several hours examining the wreck of Grosjean’s VF20 with senior engineers from Haas the day after the grand prix.
While the circumstances leading up to the accident are clear and well-documented (see p90), there are details relating to the impact and its aftermath which bear further investigation, including why the car split in two and how part of it broke through the barrier. The fire itself is also a concern: while it’s claimed the fuel cell remained intact during the impact, the ERS battery pack is understood to have caught fire, requiring another extinguisher to be deployed.
Grosjean struggled to free himself from the cockpit before the fire took hold. In a frank interview several days after the accident he described how he initially reconciled himself to the prospect of death before the thought of leaving his children without a father motivated him to try to free himself again. His left foot was trapped behind the brake pedal, which is why he emerged wearing only one boot, and his gloves burned black as he fought his way out of the inferno.
“The angle [of impact] was determined because he [Grosjean] touched the wheel of Daniil Kvyat and then went straight into the barriers in a place where you would not expect a car to leave the road,” said FIA president Jean Todt. “But then the car, with 100kg of fuel, was cut in two. We need to understand that. It hit the rails at over 200km/h, and we know that if the Halo had not been there, I don’t want to think about what would have been the tragedy. It seems the monocoque resisted very well. A lot of things were the result of improvement [in safety standards]: the monocoque, the Halo, the overalls. We need to understand the gloves because his hands have second-degree burns.”
Besides the various camera angles available from the
JEAN TODT
commercial rights holder, the FIA will be able to gather data from other in-car safety features it has introduced in recent years. A driver-facing camera mounted within the cockpit captures images at 400 frames per second, enabling precise analysis of slow-motion footage, and every driver wears an inear accelerometer to monitor head movements during accidents. A data recorder on each car registers salient data, including speed and the forces acting on the car.
The FIA’S Serious Accident Study Group, chaired by Todt and including doctors and engineers as well as presidents of the FIA’S other sporting commissions, will collate all the investigative work before escalating it to the FIA’S Safety Commission, chaired by Sir Patrick Head.
One key aspect of the incident is the role played by the Halo in protecting Grosjean from serious injury as the monocoque penetrated the barrier. When the controversial cockpit safety system was introduced, Grosjean was among the dissenters, describing it as “a sad day for Formula 1”. He now says he was wrong: “It’s only stupid people that don’t change their mind. I wouldn’t race any car without the halo.”
The sheer violence of this accident demonstrates the need for constant vigilance on safety matters – even in crashes which do not result in serious injuries for those involved. While acknowledging the events in Bahrain vindicate the adoption of the Halo, the FIA will continue to explore safety improvements, regardless of pushback.
“He [Grosjean] was not the only one to comment on how important it [the Halo] was, having been against it earlier,” said Todt. “That is not a problem. I’m not interested in being right. I’m interested in participating and to make the right decisions.”