Data from Robert Kubica’s horrific crash at Montreal has been disclosed, showing that the Polish driver survived a 75G impact.
Kubica clipped the back of Jarno Trulli’s Toyota on an overtaking attempt, before losing his front wing and going off the track. After spinning, Kubica hit the wall at 230km/h with G-forces peaking at 75G.
The data has been rescued from the ADR (accident data recorder). This electronic device is about 15cm x 15cm and is placed just behind the driver, below the fuel tank. It is capable of logging data from the entire race.
Peter Wright, former Lotus engineer and current head of the FIA safety commission, studied the data alongside Andy Mellor and Hubert Gramling. They came to the conclusion that all of the safety measures – the survival cell, HANS device, head rest and helmet – all worked as expected.
After seeing the data, BMW Sauber’s technical director Willy Rampf said, “While we were completely shocked about the violence of the accident, we were over the moon to see Robert relatively unharmed and were very content about the behaviour of the chassis as survival cell. We are never doing any compromises regarding the chassis, never going nearly to the limit regarding weight for instance.
“We stay always on the safe side and that paid off. One must not forget that such a call is quite complex, consisting of over 1,000 parts of carbon fibre, Kevlar, honeycomb structures and metal.”
