Kovalainen diagnosis: Sore neck and elbow.

Having watched the wreck I am wondering how it is possible to see through the floor board of the car? Debris could have come through and hurt him badly. I realize the impact was terrific but feel the floor should have stayed in place. Or did the safety team do it while getting him free of the barrier?

that was some scary **** -- f1 may be boring as f.ck but they ve sure done a good job in terms of safety, hats off to that.

well dont watch it then

The commentators were talking about how the teams try to save weight by making the wheels so flimsy, that they cannot remove and replace a tire without sending the wheel in to be x-rayed. They said this leads to a lot of the wheel failures, and we saw how catastrophic it is. That was a terrible wreck. They standardized the computers, why don't they standardize the wheels with a more substantial construct?

yeah how come i could see the crane thing and the floor through the front of the car,thats where heikki's feet were,its amazing that he was'nt more badly hurt...it was a bad accident,safety is good now,a couple of years back there would have been a different outcome.good luck heikki m8.

So the highly questionable safety record of McLaren continues. They are a team who do not have an inherent attitude of safety toward the driver.
If others who are more familiar with the total record of F1 could add to the the list of failures even starting with Sennas death ( I can hear the spin doctors now "....the inquiry found....")
I am disappointed that the english press has not raised this very important matter very much, is it because nationalism comes before respect and concern for the individual ?

Leon,

What evidence do you have that McLaren fail to put thier drivers safety first?

I think you will find other teams on the grid that have a worse safety record than McLaren.

I think your post was more about a jab at McLaren than trying to make any particular point. The car hit a tyre barrier head on at 140mph. Carbon Fibre is immensly strong, but it doesn't defy physics.

Senna is dead.
And it is /was much more than a jab at McLaren it is a direct and accurate criticism.
It is a team whose paradigms are regulations in design and a culture of objectivity to the point where driver safety is secondary and afforded by rules.

leon you twerp the great senna wasnt driveing a mclaren when he passed away ill imformed idiot these cars are stronger than ever thats the reason there wasnt a serious injury to day

Senna had some cracking accidents in Mclarens, one i remember well is at Mexico in 1992 where he rolled his car. He survived and the only part of him to get injured in a Mclaren was his bruised ego.

Glad to read that Kovvi is well, barring some slight injuries, it looked as though it was going to be tragic and more so the moment they pulled up that blue tarp. Did feel they took a tad too long in getting him out of there but it probably couldnt have been avoided.

F1 has outgrown gravel traps. More often than not, they fail to slow a car down sufficiently to prevent accidents like this. When cars hit gravel traps at 140mph, they spend most of the trip to the barriers bouncing along semi-airborne straight to the scene of the accident, which doesnt allow them to either steer or brake.
And as a double whammy, if a car overshoots into a trap, more often than not it gets beached if it isnt wrecked. What's the point?

Both from a safety standpoint and an entertainment standpoint, I think tarmac runoffs like we see in the new Tilke circuits are the way to go. All euro circuits need to be modified to replace gravel traps with large tarmac runoff.

Leon, What has Senna's death got to do with it? He was driving a Williams when he died. What is your view on Schumachers accident at Silverstone? Was that Italian nationalism?

Didn't McLaren pioneer the use of carbon fibre?

"well dont watch it then" - wow is that the best tyou can do? go watch your "best crashes" videos and stfu

Leon & others, I think every team, from McLaren to Super Aguri, design their car to get maximum performance - while filling the requirements of the safety regulations. I really don't think anyone would go beyond that for extra safety reasons - like, say, make a monocoque that's a bit more rigid but makes the car heavier than the minimum weight. They'd rather make a light chassis and put ballast in the right places. The teams' job is to make a car that's faster than all other cars, the FIA's job is to make sure that noone builds a car that isn't safe to drive. That's the way it's worked for ages in pretty much all kinds of car racing.

Thank You dean o & Lead, everyone is entitled to their opinion but when a complete **** like Leon posts a comment and doesn't even know the make of car a great man died in so chooses to blame another because it suits him it makes a mockery of the site.

I stand to be corrected but I was under the impression that the wheels are made and supplied by outside manufacturers and then the teams buy them in !! If the problem is down to the wheels being made too fragile to save weight then perhaps FIA should impose a MINIMUM weight limit per rim.. the tyre fitters could put each rim on a set of scales before fitting the tyre and if the rim is below weight it gets rejected, a little more time consuming I know but if the bridgestone fitting teams arrived a day earlier than the norm it wouldn't put any additional pressures on Friday,Saturday or Sunday (race weekends)....

... testing weekends wouldn't be an issue because there would be no advantage in testing lightweight wheel rims that wouldn't pass scrutineering on the race weekends
PS forgot to say... speedy recovery to Kovi.

Sorry to hear about Hekki getting hurt but lest we not forget Fernando had an engine failure and could gave also being killed what if the flames had ingulfed his car before he had a chance to get out or if he accidently pulled his seatbealt tight and couldnt undo it, Oh and an other thing it was Fernando's home grand prix so sympathy for him woudnt go amiss