F1 2015 Testing

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This is full tin foil hat mode but maybe he lost conciousness before the hit?

Sounds like it's similar to Danny Hulmes Crash at Bathurst when he got a heart attack (and unfortunately died).
 
Well this makes even less sense...I mean look at this photo:
dcd1522fe551.jpg

It's like the car drifted into the grass and then the wing got ripped off by the grass...
 
The sequence of pictures clearly shows that the impact with the wall is not big. If it was the case the car would separate itself from the wall (action-reaction). As the spanish photographer, only eye-witness (besides Vettel) that told publicly what he saw, the car just rolled on, brushing the wall and tearing off all there was to tear from the front wing. No damage is visible in any other element of the car and if you see the pictures carefully you'll notice the car didn't even travel much. Also, from the pictures it is clear that Alonso remained motionless in the car for a considerable amount of time.

Here the sequence of pictures. Pay careful notice to the wall and try to guess what distance did the car travel there. You'll reach the conclusion it wasn't a great one, and that should tell you something about speed.

http://www.marca.com/albumes/2015/0...x.html?cid=SMBOSO34503&s_kw=twitterCM=Twitter

In my mind there's no doubt something happened to Alonso. What I don't know, and won't know unless McLaren wants, is if Alonso fainted on his own, or if it was something from the car that made him lose consciousness.
 
Hun200kmh
The sequence of pictures clearly shows that the impact with the wall is not big.
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But he suffered a concussion; so it must have been a sizable impact (or rather an impact where Alonso himself took most of the force).

I'm going to stay firm in my opinion on this. From Mclaren's statement:

Our data also confirms that Fernando’s car struck the inside concrete wall, first with its front-right wheel and then with its rear-right. It was a significant lateral impact, resulting in damage to the front upright and axle.
Click to expand...

The idea that McLaren would omit details if they wanted to keep something private, yes thats plausible. But outright lying about the impact, let alone the rest of the incident? I'm sorry but it's just absurd........

Here's a good piece from crash.net about the incident. Key excerpts:

With no damage sustained to the driver safety area it may seem strange for a driver to suffer a concussion, though – ask the right people – and they will tell you that this is seemingly possible.

I am not a medically minded person so I have spoken to some people who are and they tell me that a high deceleration could cause a concussion even if the head did not make direct contact with anything other than the cockpit surround. In addition, though the skull is restrained by the cockpit soft wall and the helmet linked to the head and neck restraints, the brain can move inside the skull and that is what causes concussion in some cases like this' I was informed.
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Alonso was said to be fully conscious following the crash even though he did not get out of the car. This, however, is justified by today's grand prix cars being fitted with a warning system which lights up if a car has an impact of over a certain G level. When that is activated after a crash, the driver is instructed not to get out of the car unassisted if he does not have to, and that's exactly what happened in Barcelona with Alonso.
Click to expand...

One example McLaren used to prove that Alonso was conscious and trying to control the car during the crash was that he was downshifting before he hit the wall.
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Lots of people on social media have openly rejected this saying that it is a 'weather balloon' theory (in reference to the Roswell UFO conspiracy theory) and that wind simply cannot blow a car off the track, and to an extent they are right. The wind did not blow the car off the track, but then McLaren never claimed as much.

What happened is a gust of wind at just the wrong moment caused Alonso to make a small mistake on the way into turn three, where drivers typically run right up to the edge of the track anyway, so even a 30mm wider deviation from the normal line due to a strong gust of wind could indeed result in the rear wheel going onto the Astroturf and the car spearing off to the inside of the track. Exactly as McLaren says it did.
Click to expand...
 
Someone from another forum mentioned Richard Burns being diagnosed with a brain tumour shortly after blacking out on his way to one of the stages of the 2003 Wales Rally GB...I hope that Alonso won't get diagnosed similarly.
 
He definitely passed out that car sustained such little damage it's pitiful. The wing was ripped off from the grass for God's sake. And I don't even think the rear suspension really got damaged. Mclaren saying the wind made the car crash is a joke. They shouldn't be saying squat if they're going to fib.

This was entirely something driver related...however if by some weird chance it is not I will be thankful as I hope it wasn't Alonso losing consciousness.
 
catamount39
He definitely passed out that car sustained such little damage it's pitiful.
Click to expand...

But then how did he sustain a concussion?

catamount39
Mclaren saying the wind made the car crash is a joke.
Click to expand...

They didn't. Quoting crash.net (again):

Lots of people on social media have openly rejected this saying that it is a 'weather balloon' theory (in reference to the Roswell UFO conspiracy theory) and that wind simply cannot blow a car off the track, and to an extent they are right. The wind did not blow the car off the track, but then McLaren never claimed as much.

What happened is a gust of wind at just the wrong moment caused Alonso to make a small mistake on the way into turn three, where drivers typically run right up to the edge of the track anyway, so even a 30mm wider deviation from the normal line due to a strong gust of wind could indeed result in the rear wheel going onto the Astroturf and the car spearing off to the inside of the track. Exactly as McLaren says it did.
Click to expand...
 
One very odd thing I only noticed now. The doctors took Alonso's helmet off his head before taking him out of the car (!?). You can see it in picture 16 of the sequence, the helmet is already in a marshall's hands but Alonso isn't yet on the stretcher. I'll try to post the picture here, hope it works:

1424610048_extras_albumes_0.jpg


It does. Now, why do I find this odd? Because being a biker I know from personal experience that if you have a serious crash, with heavy impact, and you are wearing a crash helmet, the last thing a doctor will want to do until you are fully stabilized and surrounded by medical apparatus is to ... take the helmet off your head.

So, what do I get from this? The way I see it the only explanation for such an odd behaviour from the doctors is that it was very clear to them that Alonso didn't suffer any major impact.

Then again, I can't reconcile this "helmet extraction" with the supposed amount of G forces Alonso suffered, according to what was posted by McLaren. 30, I think ...
 
That is weird...In the NFL they have the same procedure when someone has a serious head/neck area injury; they take the facemask off but leave the helmet on. So for the doctors to remove his helmet means something else IS going on then.
 
Or maybe the particular circumstances of the situation necessitated helmet removal. Maybe Alonso was concious by then and took it off himself. Who knows?
 
Wouldn’t a high impact have activated the medical warning light? A 30g deceleration certainly should. In such a case removing the driver’s helmet would very probably have been contrary to any basic safety measures. :confused:
 
TRGTspecialist
The idea that McLaren would omit details if they wanted to keep something private, yes thats plausible. But outright lying about the impact, let alone the rest of the incident? I'm sorry but it's just absurd........
Click to expand...

The reason for eventual/possible outright lying could be your first sentence. In order to maintain Alonso's privacy in case of a personal problem, the wind can be a perfect excuse; the car was perfect, the driver did his job but the wind caused a slight mistake which made him crash. In this way no one is to blame and medias have what they want.

About McLaren's statement, I find it strange that they claim "Fernando’s car struck the inside concrete wall, first with its front-right wheel". So they're basically saying that the front right wheel and suspension should have absorbed most of that really hard impact. It's very difficult to trust it, while looking at the pictures. The tire seems perfect, wishbones seem perfect, the front right tire is perfectly aligned with the left one. It doesn't make sense.

There's also this: "Pirelli engineers have noticed, while analyzing the MP-30 medium tires, that only the rear rim was damaged, with a consequent deflated tire, not the front one. The right rear tire is also the only one which lost pressure, there was no sign of damages caused by locking the tires while braking. Since no defects were found, Pirelli destroyed the tires as per procedure." (source: Gazzetta dello Sport)
 
Alonso out of hospital. Official press statement from mclaren:

Following his testing accident at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya last Sunday, we are pleased to confirm that Fernando Alonso has now left hospital. He has returned to his family’s home in Spain for further rest and recuperation.

As a result, he will sit out this week’s final winter test, at which he was due to share driving duties with Jenson Button. Kevin Magnussen, McLaren-Honda’s test and reserve driver, will replace him.

Jenson will be testing the McLaren-Honda car tomorrow (February 26), and the team will confirm the full day-to-day running order in due course.
 
marco89IT
The reason for eventual/possible outright lying could be your first sentence. In order to maintain Alonso's privacy in case of a personal problem, the wind can be a perfect excuse; the car was perfect, the driver did his job but the wind caused a slight mistake which made him crash. In this way no one is to blame and medias have what they want.
Click to expand...

If they wanted to maintain Alonso's privacy, surely it's likely a team like McLaren would respond with a "we are currently analysing the situation and have no further comment at this time" type statement. Instead, they explictly stated:

- high winds was the likely factor that caused Alonso to run wide onto the astroturf, triggering the loss of control and the crash.
- there was no mechanical or electrical failure.
- Alonso was downshifting and braking during the accident, showing that he was conscious before impact.
- the car struck the wall side-on, and it was a significant lateral impact.

Are we seriously considering the idea that McLaren made all of this up to hide something?
 
Something stinks here... The crash was clearly not very major, damage to the car was very light and the amount of medical personnel at the scene is very very high...

He either fainted, got shocked or something's up with Alonso and they're currently keeping it a secret...

I hope Alonso's fine - he's my fave driver after all...
 
To me it seems pretty clear that Alonso blacked out.

Why? We dont know, and im not sure we ever will. Concussion? No. It appears he started to fade and slow down, then blackout completely and turn towards the wall, making impact like McLaren have said, which seems to be backed up by the car passing through the grass, as the Right-Rear suspension does appear damaged, but not so much the Front-Right, which I cant explain. This could also explain taking his helmet off, as if he was "awake and conscious", after passing out Alonso may have been disorientated and taken his helmet off due to that? And I guess they've been running scans on his brain to see for a cause for a blackout, explaining why hes been in hospital for the last 3 days. As blackouts can just happen, glad to see he came out today, as that suggests it was just a freak incident.

Obviously tin foil hatting as we dont know everything, but that does seem plausible.
 
And like the photos shown yesterday show...the car drifted into the grass and used the wall as a guide until it stopped. F1 cars are not bricks they break if you apply any force to them.

And not to sound like a complete dunce...but the winds would have to be pretty bad to cause him to crash.
 
FIA is going to investigate:

The circumstances of the accident and length of Alonso's hospital stay have raised questions about whether McLaren and the driver's management have been fully open about what happened.

BBC Sport has learned that governing body the FIA is to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the accident to ensure its causes and consequences are fully understood.
Click to expand...
 
They're investigating the bums at Mclaren who apparently are worse at reporting accident information than China.
(Read with Jeremy Clarkson voice in head)

But seriously for once the FIA investigation team is being useful...
 
MonSpaNur
Yes, they did.

Clearly.

The car says that.
Click to expand...

marco89IT
And are we seriously considering that this car "struck the wall with a significant lateral impact...first with his front-right wheel"?
Click to expand...

Significant lateral impact does not mean "really fast crash that destroyed the car with bits flying everywhere". In this context it means that high g-forces were experienced directly by the driver - which would be the case if the car is relatively intact (and hence hasn't absorbed much energy). And one of the most likely ways this could happen surely is a side-on impact with a concrete wall - not necessarily at very high speed either.

I want to emphasise again, if you think McLaren are covering something up there is two ways they could have gone about it - say nothing, or lie. Assume they've done the latter - the FIA are now investigating this incident, and if they find McLaren have outright lied about multiple parts of this incident, something that concerns driver safety, this would be incredibly serious. Why on earth would they do this over just keeping quiet?
 

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