Wovw... i didn't realize it was that bad.. Nico is right, easily on the top5 of worst incidents ever. The start of the chain is very tiny error but the consequences were horrible. For me it was over so quickly, nothing special (i ALWAYS have to slow down on turn 1 and 2 on every track and navigate thru the spins, standard procedure..) so didn't think so much of it, specially as it was not discussed in the gravity it required. I thought it was medium severity at best, with a crash that big we should have 5 pages of posts, videos and analyzes, followed and preceded by apologies. We are on page 2 now...
At the moment of first touch, there is clear mistake on drivingline at Eau Rouge but making the decision of going thru with the choice already made or start slowing down.. That's hard and i doubt many of us would've made the right one. Slowing down on midpack usually has catastrophic consequences, we all know that.
This kind of accident is exactly the kind i fear the most, from season 8 when i doubted my own safety, i saw nightmares of incidents like this. I did a LOT of practice back then for it and haven't seen any doubts about my safety during the
season since (i've done my mistakes on off-season practice races..) and i feel very confident. It does help that i have no expectations of getting any decent scores so i stay at the back very gladly.
I see the same from the seasoned veterans at the back of the grid, we are going thru turns in single file line, no fighting until lap 2. We take our positions that are handed to us, oh sir, yes we do, but what i think is the most important is expectations. If you expect to finish strong, you'll hate giving out any positions at the start, resulting in a more aggressive behavior than what the driver usually has. The right attitude is safety, even if it means you are last..
At first look at the video, i thought it was me in the red car, i took exactly those lines all the way to eau rouge, where i started to slow down before the turn, before i saw any incident, i was prepared to be at full stop at Radillion... It's a blind corner so us at the back have to prepare for the worst. This is a tricky incident due to that first tap being so "innocent".
If i may analyze this, the actual mistake happens at 0:25, i see NO attempt to slowing down but only an attempt to stay as close as possible.. This is not how you do that corner. There's enough space behind to give 30m of room, get a nice clean exit from Radillion and make that attempt of passing where it's designed to happen, at the end of Kemmel straight.
About five years ago i was scorned and schooled for the same kind of mistake (it was my first GT season. at Magny Cours tried to overtake on T1.. BIG mistake, luckily only took one car out.. still getting a red face for that mistake...). Patience is the key, patience and better exit for the next straight
.. It was clear then and it's clear now that if that pass was succesfull, i would've been overtaken anyway at the next straight.. Here it's not exactly the same as there was no passing attempt but due to the nature of the corner, the same rule applies.
It could also be that those of us who drove with MMG F1, turns like Eau Rouge had to be taken like there was a pace car with over 15m between each car.. This was due to lagging.. Maybe we learned to be extra careful* back then? ( * scared like hell of getting close to anybody)
