Sure, had you described the incident and used no names I’m sure that many F1 fans would have had “Grosjean” somewhere in their top 3 guesses.
And yes he does seem like a good guy and it is a shame he has the reputation he has but he has somewhat earned it.
I’m rather glad I tuned in 5 minutes late by which time it was clear he was OK. I think had I seen it live I’d have thought “fatality” and felt the same horrible sick feeling that I did with Senna when I saw that live.
The sport has come a long, long way regarding safety and I think the crash yesterday would not have been survivable even 10 years ago.
I saw the Senna incident live, but I was only 9 at the time and apart from Ratzenberger the previous day (which I have never seen), there had been no fatal F1 accidents in my lifetime (I see from here that de Angelis died in a test in 1986, but the last death at an actual Grand Prix was 1982). I don’t remember it being thought of as fatal immediately, but it certainly set in pretty quickly. Looking at footage on YouTube now, although carbon fibre was flying all over the place, the main tub remained intact and so I think for the first minute or two at least it was assumed Senna would walk away. But the longer he remained motionless, and the more frenzied the activity around him, the clearer it became that this was a bad one.
From the same link as above, I note that the number of years between fatal Grand Prix accidents since 1970 (arbitrarily chosen by me to show safety improvements since then - between 1950 and 1980, even discounting non-GP incidents, the average was nearly one a year) looks like this:
0-3-0-1-0-1-2-1-4-0-12-0 [Senna]-20 [Bianchi]-6 and counting.
I understand Jules Bianchi’s mother has said she is glad that the HALO system, introduced following her son’s death, appears to have saved someone. I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to hope that the “6” might now rise indefinitely; without being complacent about it, the cars aren’t going to (be allowed to) get much faster, the circuits shouldn’t become less safe, and the safety devices should continue to improve.
Three years ago, before they introduced the halo, he would have been decapitated. 
IIRC, one of the reasons the halo was introduced was the incident in which a piece of debris hit Massa’s helmet, and I wasn’t convinced back then it would make a big difference, because some debris could pass right through it anyway. But after this incident, I’m sold on their effectiveness. (IndyCar has mandated both a halo and aero screens starting this year. I’m still not used to them, but if they can save someone’s life, I’ll “live with it.”)
Of course, one could also criticize the steel barriers at that track, which the pointy end of the car was able to spread apart and slide through. I suspect that type of barrier will be a focus of investigation, and I won’t be surprised if there are calls for them to be replaced with something less easily penetrated.
BTW, in addition to the “survival cell” of the cockpit and the fact that the medical car and a course worker were on the scene with fire extinguishers within seconds, another key element that saved Grosjean was his flame-resistant clothing. I checked, and he was in that fireball for nearly 30 seconds! Absent any of those factors, we could be mourning his death today.
Yes, you are probably right for that specific aspect. indeed!
I think the whole concept of the “survival cell” has got better and better in all aspects, direct collision, roll-over, penetration, fire resistance, energy dissipation, emergency egress, “submarining” etc etc.
The truth of this can be seen by the fact that Stroll’s roll-over could be seen as amusing rather than posing any real danger to him. I don’t think anyone wondered if he’d be all right.
For those with a strong stomach and a willingness to be depressed for a while there is a rather excellent documentary from the BBC called “Grand Prix, the killer years” which is a dramatic title but rather well named as it covers the early years of the sport through to the point where safety started to be taken seriously.
So many died in circumstances that today would merely elicit an anecdote down the pub.
That’s what I’ve been thinking. Everyone has been praising the safety of the car (and rightly so), and the halo protecting Grosjean’s head when it went through the trackside barrier, but he should never have gone through the barrier in the first place. I’m curious if that was built to spec, and when the spec was last reviewed.
Maybe it’s a good thing that half the car went all the way through the barrier; if it had gotten stuck halfway through that might have prevented Grosjean from climbing out.
It’s still amazing that the only injuries Grosjean had were some relatively minor burns to his hands and feet and some broken ribs. I think if there were still any poo-poohers of the Halo, this would be the incident that would quiet them. It’s proved it’s effectiveness a few times over and now especially.
And then right when they got back racing, Stroll flipped over. Kind of a surreal day in general.
I forgot to mention in my last post that (if I recall correctly) the thing that killed Senna, despite the cockpit largely remaining intact, was a suspension rod to the head. Would HALO protect against that? Or perhaps suspension design has since changed to make it much less likely.
You can never fully eliminate the risk of a freak accident killing someone. But we seem to have gone from 1 fatality per year to 1 fatality per decade in a pretty short space of time, and hopefully we’re now at the 1 fatality per lifetime level (yes I know, everyone gets 1 fatality per lifetime; that’s not what I meant). Put another way, if you had an F1 driver in the family in the 1970s you’d be seriously worried for them every race - now, not so much.
My Mum worries every time I go on holiday so I seriously doubt she’d be too calm if I was an F1 driver!
Re: a Senna type accident, I may be mistaken but the rods are more securely connected to the wheels and the wheel assembly is tethered to the car which means in theory it’s harder for them to come off the car. But in fact what we say on Sunday were two wheels - complete with long tripods of suspension rods - bouncing away from the crash towards where spectators, marshals and other cars might have been. A bit worrying.
Yeah, I have a mum like that too 
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I suppose this is similar to the discussion we had upthread about how to make tracks, and in particular high-speed corners, safe - the safest for drivers is probably very large tarmac run-off areas, but fans are not likely to want to buy tickets for a seat that is several hundred metres from the action.
I wonder if the raised nose on modern F1 cars was a factor. If the armco barriers were designed and tested with older cars, when the nose was almost scraping the track, maybe it would have stopped this car. Could it be that the raised nose hit a gap in the armco and pushed its way through?
It might have been worse with a low nose - the car might have gone under the barrier and got wedged before it penetrated all the way through.
Hamilton’s got the covid. Gonna miss this week’s race.
Damn. Good thing this won’t affect the championship.
Who is gonna be the 2nd Merc pilot??? This outta be fun…
Not for Bottas if they show him up! I don’t think that’s particularly likely, but yeah, could be good.
That’s kind of what I’m thinking. As you all know, I’m not a huge Hamilton fan. I’m predicting that whoever gets their butt in the seat will do well and crush the field, and maybe Bottas as well, thus proving what we all know. It’s the car. Sure, Lewis is a great driver, but if not for that car, he’d never have broken all those records.
Truth is, I’m just bitter and jealous. Haters gonna hate! 
I’d love to see Russell get a ride in the main car - and apparently Merc has asked Williams if that’s possible. If not, the reserve drive is Stoffel Vandoorne, who they’d recall from the FormulaE team. I’m sure he’d love to beat the McLarens.
Let’s bring back Mika!
You are right, but I was listening to a radio show recently and the very good point was made that he is in the best car precisely because he is the best driver. That’s how the system works. Just like with Schumacher (albeit it took a while to work at Ferrari - but when it did, oh boy), Prost, Senna, et al.
Russell to take Hamilton’s seat this weekend! I’m very pleased with this. Can’t wait to see his true colors.