[richidoo]

Fun qualy today.   My man is on the pole! woohoo!

I saw the heave spring slomo impact AFTER I saw Massa waiving to crowd, thank goodness. Scary freaky accident.  That thing is steel, probably 5-10 pounds. Two bricks in the head at 180 mph.  I'm still worried about him. Mark Donahue had similar injury and felt fine for 2 hours.

Kimi back to McLaren? Maybe tolerable now with Dennis gone.  McLaren looking good today.

I'm glad the race is on broadcast this weekend, as I will not be near cable TV on Sunday.
Enjoy the race!
Rich

[mgalusha]

Qualifying was good and it was amusing at the end as there seemed to be some confusion for a few minutes as to who was actually on the pole. Massa hitting the tire wall was damn scary. Even with the waving I'm very concerned.

[mhconley]

My hopes and prayers are with Felipe for a full and speedy recovery.  He is lucky to be alive - very scary.  Globo.com story & pictures.

Good job Fernando.

[ltr317]

I taped the qualifying so I could watch it after the NY Audio Rave today.  I'm very sorry about what happened to Massa, and hope that he has a speedy recovery so he can race again soon.  My biggest fear when I was racing in an open top car was that a piece of exhaust, or, some other part would break off from a car in front of me and conk me in the head.  Crashing the car was of less concern.  It's a serious risk open top racers take and tragedy occurs more often than closed top racers.  The latest example is Surtees' son, who died last week from this type of accident in a GP2 race.

[ltr317]

Latest news is that Massa suffered eye damage.  It's too early to tell if it will end his racing career.  What a shame!

[richidoo]

I read today on Massas website that he can see with his left eye, but it has not yet been evaluated for damage or loss of sight. There is still too much swelling which will affect vision. But he is back in Brazil now, resting and starting recovery. There should be no more surgery. It seems like a miraculous recovery, at least from the eyes of his wife and new child. Domenicali has promised his red car will be available when he is ready. Meantime....

A certain "M Skewmaker" will substitute for Massa.  That will be interesting and fun to watch, eclipsing all other F1 news for a couple races.

Sadly, BMW is pulling out end of this season. Finishing consistently at the back is worse for marketing than no involvement at all. Funny, Williams adapted very well to the new rules. Remember not so long ago when Mario Theissen said they were not good enough to be a BMW teammate?

At least there are several new teams who will need drivers to scoop up the Fisichellas, Barichellos and Heidfelds.

[richidoo]

My biggest fear when I was racing in an open top car was that a piece of exhaust, or, some other part would break off from a car in front of me and conk me in the head.  Crashing the car was of less concern.  It's a serious risk open top racers take and tragedy occurs more often than closed top racers. 

Paul, It is a shame to see most all open wheel racing fatalities of the last 2 decades are head injuries. Bernie Ecclestone and Barrichello have called for research to find a solution to the head protection issue. I hope it gains traction.

A glass cockpit would provide the best protection, but then you face the technical demands of cooling the space for the driver. It is a big issue in sportscars. Perhaps a cage of some sort could be  adopted which could act as protection to deflect larger pieces of debris out of the cockpit, while also serving as additional aerodynamic element.  Visibility would be a design criteria.

[mike1964]

Very interesting video recreation of the incident on Jalopnik. <-- click the link, but be warned there is a photo of him right after the incident at the top of the page, not for the squeamish.  Scroll down two videos for the animated recreation.  On the tv replay during the event it didn't look as bad as it really was.  The spring hit his face shield head-on; I thought that the side of the spring hit when I first saw it.  No wonder he has such a bad eye/skull injury, he's lucky to be alive.  We certainly wish him well and hope that he'll be back; he's one of the good guys in the sport. 

[ltr317]

My biggest fear when I was racing in an open top car was that a piece of exhaust, or, some other part would break off from a car in front of me and conk me in the head.  Crashing the car was of less concern.  It's a serious risk open top racers take and tragedy occurs more often than closed top racers. 

Paul, It is a shame to see most all open wheel racing fatalities of the last 2 decades are head injuries. Bernie Ecclestone and Barrichello have called for research to find a solution to the head protection issue. I hope it gains traction.

A glass cockpit would provide the best protection, but then you face the technical demands of cooling the space for the driver. It is a big issue in sportscars. Perhaps a cage of some sort could be  adopted which could act as protection to deflect larger pieces of debris out of the cockpit, while also serving as additional aerodynamic element.  Visibility would be a design criteria.

My laptop crapped out on me last friday, so have been out of commission until now.  Yeah, I agree something has to be done to further improve safety in open cockpit cars.  When you see what happened to Kubica a couple of years ago crashing at 140-150 mph and the extent of his injuries, safety has come a long way in terms of chassis protection.  Yet very little has been done to prevent head injuries.  There is no way to prevent this kind of injury all the time, but the sport can certainly make it safer.  I don't think F1 would allow a protective cover or cage for the cockpit, as that is against the spirit of this type of racing.  There are already sports prototypes that do this, and they are almost close cockpit F1 cars already. 

[richidoo]

Thanks Paul...  We'll see what comes of it.