A spectacular accident occurred at the Le Mans 24-hour endurance race in France today. Allan McNish crashed his Audi sports car at high speed. Here's a video clip of the incident from several angles.
Notice a couple of things:
- The number of people directly in the path of the car (see, for example, at 0 min. 27 sec. into the video). If the car hadn't flipped back over the wall, there might have been a dozen people killed or seriously injured.
- The wheel chasing a photographer down the walkway (from 0 min. 17 sec. onwards, at the bottom of the frame).
- The reaction of McNish's pit crew when they see the accident on their TV monitors. You can see that some of them fear the worst for him.
The fact that McNish survived in relatively good health is a profound testimony to the protection built into modern sports car designs . . . but even so, I can only imagine that a large number of guardian angels were working overtime at Le Mans today!
Peter
6 comments:
That they were, no question! And agreed, it's a miracle the car flopped back on the 'correct' side of the ARMCO...
I have friends at the race. When I saw the wreck I thought it must be a throttle failure. They replied no it was just typical McNish driving.
Gerry
Considering some of the accidents that have happened at LeMans past, I am sure the guardian angels prepare in advance and are on standby for the duration.
hat did not seem to me to be the fault of McNish but the fault of the driver of the red car who came across the track as if to cut him off. It almost looked as if he was intentionally trying to block the progress of McNish. I am not saying it definitely was intentional but it sure could have been from the look of it.
As the announcer said, Thank God.
I dunno, GlennB: the Ferrari pilot saw one R18 behind him, turned in, then caught McNish coming through the inside line. With the elevation changes involved in that part of the track and the limited visibility out the back of a GT car, I'd need more than just a replay to blame the GT driver for the incident.
Either way, we see another safety benefit of carbon fibre monocoques: not only do they protect the driver rather well, but the debris they create has little mass or momentum, and doesn't scythe through photographers like fragments of sheet steel. Thank God, yes... for giving us engineers.
Audi sure had an eventful race.
Rockenfellen, also on Team Audi, had a crash later at night. He signaled to pass a Ferrari and it cut in on him. Almost the same as McNish's crash; although, with much less traffic around. Maybe it's the Ferrari drivers...
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