Reality Check
Editor of Racecar Engineering, Andrew Cotton shares his thoughts on the events at Spa 6 hours in his latest Cottonballs blog.
Much has been made of the accidents that befell the Dragonspeed and BR Engineering teams at the opening round of the WEC at Spa early in May. It is clear that the teams involved, the constructor and the FIA need to understand what caused the accidents, and what caused the leg injuries to Dragonspeed driver Pietro Fittipaldi.
Fittipaldi crashed his car [see 1min35 in the video below] at Raidillon during Qualifying and suffered lower leg fractures, while Matevos Isaakyan took off and flipped his SMP BR1 slightly further around the same corner. That meant his trajectory took him down the track, rather than into the crowds or into the forest, which was a blessing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTj50J8JzZI?feature=oembed
In the case of Fittipaldi, it was clear from the footage of the accident that the lights briefly flicked off just as he lost control. It seems highly likely, therefore, that he suffered a brief loss of electrical power, which would then lead to the assumption that the electric power steering briefly stopped working.
According to one LMP1 driver, navigating the corner with power steering is hard enough. Navigating it without power steering would be almost impossible, and would almost certainly lead to this accident.
To be clear, there is no confirmation that it was an electrical failure, or if there was one, what caused it. When you are happily sitting in your living room watching the television and it goes off, it’s probably the toaster that short circuited. Or the leaking shower into a light bulb. But it is not necessarily the failure of the television set. Dallara and the FIA will be looking for the root cause of the crash and will make its findings known within the next seven days.
Regarding Isaakyan’s accident, shortly before he crashed he was seen going off at Blanchiment at high speed, keeping his foot in, and rejoined the track at full speed. Other drivers reported that the car, in low-downforce Le Mans trim, was challenging to drive on the Spa circuit and was twitchy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5bPgU1n4yI?feature=oembed
In the video of the accident that recently surfaced on the internet (above), Isaakyan hove into view already far off track on the driver’s left, and took off Peter Dumbreck Mercedes circa 1999 style. It will be up to the FIA to work out how he got to be so far off the circuit, and what actually caused the nose to lift enough that air could pass to the flat floor, and provide enough lift at that speed.
However, it should also be pointed out at this stage that the Dallara cars have passed all the relevant crash testing procedures, and were passed fit to race. From the comments on the internet, it’s worrying that people seem to have forgotten this.
Dallara will be working overtime to understand the cause of the accidents, and the injury to Fittipaldi, while also preparing new cars for Le Mans. The SMP team already has a spare chassis, but Dragonspeed will need a new one, plus spares for both teams. That’s a tall order, but Dallara was clear that a customer team had never yet failed to race because of a shortage of parts, and it wasn’t about to start now.
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