Anthoine Hubert 1996-2019

[Will Mazeo]

From what I've seen, I doubt there's a safety cell that could prevent a fatality when the impact is so very violent. To quote a BBC article I read: "There's only so much the human body can take." (or something to that effect.) Even if the cell stays intact, the violence of the crash can cause just too much trauma. Obviously, there will be a FIA investigation about this.

One of the pics from the side shows the cockpit is almost fully open tho, this should not happen.
However someone pointed after the first impact (with the tire barrier) the cell probably lost its strenght and the second one was too much for it to handle.

 

[diezz]

R.I.P Anthoine.

 

[Miguel Batista]

Sad moment for motorsports.
Seeing that horrific accident shows that you can have all the safety features in the world but this is an extremely dangerous sport still. I don't think you can make cars safer than they are nowadays this was just too big an impact.

It reminds me of history. When knights wearing full plate armour would die due to blunt force trauma propagating through their bodies even if physically there seemed to be nothing wrong with them... There is only so much our bodies can take.

 

[STEFAN03]

"Bon voyage mon ami" may you rest in peace.

 

[Deleted member 875593]

While it is clearly a hard and traumatic experience for the family and the more and the less involved drivers its very elusive to me how people make a personal experience out of it. Why? Just to read themselves on the web? I mean, sorry, but... no one here - or very few - knew that man in person. His sad passing and the pain of his relatives are - in my eyes - disrespected. I was in the situation of an even harder goodbuy after an immense illness from a very near relative. A person from my life, not one i watched on TV or web. And i gave a shidd about people who did´nt know my family and said "Sorry".
In my eyes it´s just the mania to post something. I mean.... does anyone here really mourn? Of course not, it´s a spectaculum for the most. And these condolences are for whom? The family won´t read it. Anyway... disagree with me, but this is just a thread of senseless self-adulating.

 

[Ho3n3r]

Such a sad feeling all day during the GP build-up, much more sombre mood all around than usual, as expected.

When I saw the picture of his headrest flying and his head just limp to the left, I knew it was over, it just felt so similar to the feeling I had after seeing Senna in much the same way - but kept hoping I was wrong.

Next year his best 3 mates will all be in F1, and they will race for him. Hopefully, one or two of them will win a world championship one day.

R.I.P. Anthoine

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Does this bring into question the impact design of the safety cell? We've seen high speed side impacts before that have not resulted in a fatality, so what/why did it go so wrong for Anthoine. I do hope this results in a review of the monocock design, we shouldn't be losing drivers in this manner with all our modern technology. We owe it to Anthoine to make sure it doesn't happen again.

The main issue was that he got two pretty major hits in the same area of the car. There is no way to know what would've happened if the side-hit from Correa would've been fatal if that was the sole hit. However, the crash structure was weakened from the hit with the tyres before. This is the worst case in racing, and also the hardest thing to built safety for - the second hit. You cannot make the safety features "too hard", so they don't weaken and shed off from the first major hit, as the energy needs to go somewhere, if there is nothing on the cars that gives in, the energy that the car gets, isn't absorbed by the crash structures and thrown away, the energy goes in to the human body, and that would make accidents that's noe issue today, become a huge issue.
The one thing I can think of, that might be an "easy" helper, is the foam used in NASCAR (and WRC I think). Of course, that foam might've gone off in the first hit, but it would've taken energy as well.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

When I saw the picture of his headrest flying and his head just limp to the left, I knew it was over, it just felt so similar to the feeling I had after seeing Senna in much the same way - but kept hoping I was wrong.

When I first saw it on the live coverage, I hoped he had only passed out, as I've seen that quite a bit.
It wasn't until I rewinded and watched again I realized that it looked extremely similar to Roland Ratzenberger in how he was in the cockpit, and how the remains of safety cell was.
It's times like that I kinda wish I didn't watch the racing live.

 

[SinAporia]

i was 2001 at the Lausitzring when zanardi lost both his legs in a simular accident, at that was hard to watch...
and then i saw this... safty came a long way, in the last decade, but there was nothing you can prepare someone for. You can't be safe at that speed and this angle - but how does Correa feel. I mean he was in the car that collected hubert, tbh, i couldn't race anymore in that situation.

He couldn't do anything, to avoid that crash. But hopefully he can race again. But for Hubert - well talented driver, had a great future ahead. I hope he finds some peace, and lauda and hubert have some fun races up there...until the next driver sais good bye to us. Lets hope its on a natural way not in a race

 

[Friedrichpc]

R.I.P. Anthoine

 

[Deleted member 205301]

Sorry to post here, I hope it's not disrespectfull, here is a video in wich you'll understand exactly xhat happened

 

[paracletus]

The cars are so fast, probably not far off f1 early '90s.
It is difficult to see exactly what happened (not sure why the other driver didn't react), but nevertheless it is a very terrible accident to happen.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

The cars are so fast, probably not far off f1 early '90s.
It is difficult to see exactly what happened (not sure why the other driver didn't react), but nevertheless it is a very terrible accident to happen.

By the looks of it, Correa was without a front wing, so there is a possibility that he is riding on the wing. As there is smoke from the car, but it doesn't look completely like tire smoke.

 

[Patrik Marek]

G forces alone will probably kill you in that impact, nothing you can do about safety of the cars

Very sad and reminds us that racing is still dangerous

 

[Ho3n3r]

The cars are so fast, probably not far off f1 early '90s.
It is difficult to see exactly what happened (not sure why the other driver didn't react), but nevertheless it is a very terrible accident to happen.

Alesi lost it 2 cars in front of Hubert, he went to the left wall and probably speared off to the right, which was also the cause of why Hubert went off to the right, and that's why Correa was also going in exactly the same line. Like @Ole Marius Myrvold said, he could have had front wing damage as well, as well as Hubert. Haven't seen any footage of what happened with Alesi after he lost control.

Also, Raidillon is a blind corner, so you only see what's in front just before you plateu - best case scenario, even if your car has everything attached to it and hadn't needed to avoid a spinning car in front(Alesi), chances are you'll still be in the wall with terminal damage had Hubert been on the racing line (which he wasn't in this case, but that's moot).

To me, it looks like Alesi's car broke basically as he hit the apex of the right-hander.

1: Alesi - P10
2: Hubert - P12
3: Correa - P14

 

[Deleted member 205301]

By the looks of it, Correa was without a front wing, so there is a possibility that he is riding on the wing. As there is smoke from the car, but it doesn't look completely like tire smoke.

look the video until the end, it's written^^ Correa had a puncture on the right rear...(and we see a damaged front wing too)

 

[marius80]

Rest in peace, Antoine!

 

[Paul010101]

Rest in peace

 

[Andrew Harper]

The one thing I can think of, that might be an "easy" helper, is the foam used in NASCAR (and WRC I think). Of course, that foam might've gone off in the first hit, but it would've taken energy as well.

I'm not a huge fan of the Tech-Pro Barrier (I know it wasn't there in this case though). I think on all very high speed corners like this they need something like the SAFER barrier. It does a much better job of distributing the impact energy compared to a tyre wall (you also tend to "dig in" with a tyre wall). You would still get injured of course but at those speeds something more advanced could have saved him. I've seen drivers walk away from huge accidents with SAFER barriers and that's proof enough for me. I know other cars were involved but sometimes as a circuit you must do everything you can to minimise risk, especially at corners like at Eau Rouge.

Some years ago there was a slightly similar incident in the Spa 24, where in heavy fog a car went off at the exit of Eau Rouge head on into the tyres and spun like a top across the track. Thankfully no-one collected him but he was in a very serious condition for about a two months with bad head injuries and broken bones. The hospital put him into a coma to minimise the brain swelling. There was literally nothing left of the car but the main tub, such was the violence of the impact.

Maybe they should have upgraded the barriers then. It was an amateur driver but even so, track safety is one of those things that needs constant work on it my view.

However as others have mentioned the mandated crash test for Formula 2 cars I think is a one impact type test? Whereas F1 nowadays has some tests whereby the crash structure is hit more than once to make sure it can take the punishment of being hit by another car after a side impact for example.

Once his car took the first (very) heavy impact the crash structure was badly compromised.

Such sad news, Anthoine Hubert's family must be devastated and I know they won't see this but my thoughts are with them at such a difficult time.

My thoughts are also with Juan Manuel Correa because he's still in a very serious condition and judging by the reports of his injuries he's got a long journey of recovery ahead of him.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

However as others have mentioned the mandated crash test for Formula 2 cars I think is a one impact type test? Whereas F1 nowadays has some tests whereby the crash structure is hit more than once to make sure it can take the punishment of being hit by another car after a side impact for example.

I read on Autosport that the F2 cars and F1 cars have the same safety features and structures. I have no idea myself to be honest.
However, a fairly easy extra safety feature should be the foam used in NASCAR.