So, this is a difficult video to make and I’ve been rolling over in my head how to
put it all together. The accident between Hubert and Correa in Spa has been extremely
hard for most of us to process and I spent most of the weekend in some kind of denial
that it was even true. So what we’re going to do today is look
over the accident in very broad strokes. There will be no footage, no screencaps or photos
and no animation. Instead I’m just going to use still illustrations sparingly to lightly
touch on the chain of events that occurred. I decided that, to a lot of people, it’s
important to try and have some clarity over what happened to process and understand the
accident by making some sense of it. And most of us would rather do that without seeking
out footage of the crash and having to see such a terrible thing with our own eyes.
That said, if you don’t want to go into it at all, then that’s totally fair and
I’d advise you miss this video. There is of course a proper FIA and legal
investigation ongoing which will seek out as much information as possible on what happened
and draw conclusions over how it happened and where we go from here. This video is more
light touch than that and I’d ask you not to try and form too strong opinions from it
until the official report has come to light. I’ll also be reflecting on how we feel about
safety in motorsport and considering the questions we need to ask from here.
So let’s go through what actually happened. The accident took place at the beginning of
lap 2 of the F2 feature race. As the race had only recently started, the cars were still
fairly close together - the field not yet particularly spread.
As the cars approached the Eau Rouge complex (and I’ll just be calling it Eau Rouge for
simplicity - let’s not do the joke today) a train of cars in the midfield were: Guiliano
Alesi in 10th, followed by Ralph Boschung, Anthoine Hubert and Juan Manuel Correa.
One of the reasons Eau Rouge is such a tricky series of corners is that, as well as being
a flat out left-right-left, its elevation also changes with the cars diving down into
the first left hander, then rising steeply up through the right, then levelling out through
the left. This means the car gains a lot of mechanical
downforce as the track pitches upwards and loses mechanical downforce as the track levels
out again - very similar to how you feel heavier in an elevator as it starts to ascend but
you feel light as it starts to descend. Vertical acceleration and deceleration adds and subtracts
to downforce levels. So as you’re driving flat out through a
very fast set of esses, the grip level of the car is also changing beneath you and you,
as a driver, need to respond very acutely to the car’s feel and behaviour. That’s
part of what makes Eau Rouge so challenging. So Alesi loses control of the car through
the middle of Eau Rouge and spins wide from the right hander. He glances the tyre wall
on the outside and starts to skid back towards the track as the left hander bends to meet
him. Behind him, anticipating Alesi’s trajectory,
Boschung slows at the top of the hill and moves right into the run off area.
Unfortunately, Anthoine Hubert behind is a little unsighted coming over the crest of
the hill and gets caught out by Boschung. He makes an emergency move to the right but
glances the back of Boschung’s Trident. Now just a passenger, Hubert sails at an acute
angle into the tyre barrier on the far side of the fairly narrow runoff area.
The tyre barrier, catching Hubert at an angle, decelerates his car quickly and throws him
into a spin. This leaves Hubert turned at almost a standstill but pointed across the
runoff area. Unfortunately, behind him, Jean Manuel Correa
has also taken avoiding action across the run off area and his high speed path is suddenly
and surprisingly blocked by Hubert. This results in Correa’s car t-boning Hubert’s
Arden at very high relative speed... and the rest we know.
A couple of points to mention as I’ve seen some misconceptions floating around. At no
point does Hubert’s car bounce back onto the track before his collision with Correa.
His initial crash with the barrier leaves him entirely within the run off area. I noticed
some people thinking he was reflected back out across the track but that didn’t happen.
All of his accidents were inside the run off. A second point to bear in mind is that Hubert’s
car was side-impacted twice. It first took the impact from the barrier on the right.
It then took the impact from Correa on the left. And technically it took another hit
from the barrier on the right side after taking a hit from Correa.
Crash structures are only really designed to take one hit. That’s kind of the point
of them. They are designed to break and deform in such a way that takes a lot of the energy
out of the impact, reducing deceleration through the car and ultimately on the driver. Once
the impact structure has been deformed, it’s basically done all the work it can do, so
you really don’t want to be hit in the same place twice.
Now it’s absolutely not my place to say if this was a failure of safety, if the run
off should be gravel or something different or whether the F2 chassis are safe enough.
I don’t have the data for that and that’s up to the FIA to investigate and I fully expect
them to do it thoroughly. The FIA don’t take half measures when it comes to safety.
You may ask: Is Eau Rouge safe? And that prompts further questions like: what does that mean
exactly? Motorsport in general is never entirely without
risk and Eau Rouge is more dangerous than others due to its high speed, tricky elevation
and short run offs. But is it acceptably safe? Are the likely risks within acceptable parameters?
There’s no right answer to this, in the same way that any team or athlete approaches
an activity such as racing, rafting, climbing and so on.
I think a lot of work has been done to keep the thrill, challenge and character of Eau
Rouge while reducing the likelihood of a terrible outcome.
Unfortunately, being a track out in the wilds of Belgium, the geography doesn’t really
allow for much to be done about the run offs. There’s heavy banking on the left hand side
behind the tyre barrier here. And in the runoff at the outside of the top of the hill, the
barrier really is as far back as it can be. Just beyond it is a steep drop so we really
are boxed in here and working with what we’ve got.
I’m not going to go into whether gravel will help. I have another video on the pros
and cons of different run off areas and even if gravel would have helped during this particular
accident it may cause more overall risk for other types of accident. There’s no perfect
answer here and the FIA continue to try and find the best solutions.
It’s a fact that we marvel and awe at the risks that drivers take in competition and
that’s very much all part of the spectacle. And most of us have enjoyed motorsport through
an era where death or very serious injury has barely been part of the landscape.#
Drivers get up and walk away from even the fiercest looking crashes. That’s what we’re
used to. And that’s a good thing, of course. Coming face to face with the very worst possible
outcome makes us ask questions like ‘how safe is safe enough?’. Serious accidents
like these always lead to come kind of reform. The Formula 2 accident appeared to be an unlucky
chain of events that led to precisely the worst result but even the one-in-a-million
accidents, like the marshall Graham Beveridge who died at the 2001 Australian Grand Prix
after a tyre flew through a gap in the fence just a centimetre wider that itself, led to
reforms in how marshalls are positioned, how big gaps in the fence can be and how strongly
tyres are tethered to the cars. The FIA does not shrug at even the one-in-a-million catastrophes.
I can’t say what will happen next. I implore fans and onlookers to be patient and to respect
the findings of the FIA. Safety improvements benefit everyone - not only improving the
chances of keeping drivers relatively uninjured but allowing them to race hard at the limit.
I commend the race and TV directors for their rapid response - stopping the race, diverting
the cameras and withholding replays immediately. The unfolding situation was handled with respect
and should be appreciated. I know it’s a tricky thing waiting for information
- as fans we do have a genuine connection to the drivers we watch and the wait can be
excruciating. But, through an ongoing emergency, information is kept private until the facts
are confirmed and those closest to the people involved are kept informed.
Hubert was a fine person and an exciting up-and-coming driver. What happened was a tragedy - no one
should expect to live to only 22, whether they are a star of the future or just a regular
everyday person you see on the bus. We should send peace and strength to the young
drivers - his friends and colleagues who raced beside Anthoine who will have to process what
happened and find their own particular mental strength. Particularly to Juan Manuel Correa
who will be going through a great deal of physical recovery and an immense amount of
mental recovery to find the headspace to stay strong and move forward.
May they all find their way forward.