He didn't use his left hand at all. I thought he was gripping the halo from underneath but he's not. His wrist has got to be fucked.
From my 0.2 second glance at his onboards, he does seem to use his wrist throughout the race, but the second he gets into the pits at the end of the race he takes his left hand off the wheel. Maybe just a comfort thing in general, who knows.
At the end of the race he just says "hopping out, thank you again" then proceeds to drop his steering wheel off the car (oops) and motions for the mechanic who is coming to work on the car, to help him both take everything off (idk what the part is called, he's struggling to get situated) and then he gets help
Either way, this week leads into a triple header & if news gets out his wrist is fucked he's not capable of driving.
This is what bruised ribs look like. Lots of pain, maybe some strength with the elbow close to the chest. Other movements like above the shoulder are not really doable.
Tbh some veterans don’t do it either. I think every crash I’ve seen from Lewis he still keep them on, not sure why, maybe it’s just how he was taught and never changed
I'm still surprised F1 drivers don't let go of the wheel. Indy car drivers let go to protect their hands.
After a little bit of research it seems the power steering of F1 cars does somewhat reduce the impact of a crash on the driver's hands, unlike Indy car where they have no power steering. Might also have to do with the fact crashing in Indy car is a matter of when, not if.
A lot of the drivers do, many times we've seen them let go of the wheel. I imagine it's just not natural to let go of the wheel in the middle of a crash for almost every driver and it catches some of them out sometimes.
Rosberg spoke about this. Once he'd realised he was crashing he'd cross his arms and try to relax, whereas Lewis would hold on the whole time just in case he caught some grip last minute he could use to save it.
His father almost lost his right leg in a crash at the 92 Dutch TT. They operated (badly). He was facing amputation until a second surgery saved his leg. He had to switch to a thumb operated rear brake because he could no longer use his foot. After all that he returned for the final two races of that year. In 93 he was still recovering and racing. He won every MotoGP Championship from 94 through 98
“He said it’s a bit barbaric, and it hasn’t really been done for 20-odd years, but because the circulation was bad in my right leg, he suggested we could steal some skin and flesh from the other leg and feed the blood supply from that left leg into the right leg.”
So Mick had his legs sewn together for two weeks. Eight weeks later, he presented himself at Phillip Island ready to race. He had to hide his crutches from Race Control, hobbled onto his bike, and after a few laps saw he had ground away his little toe because he couldn’t move his foot off the peg. It was not his year.
5 actually! He won 94, 95, 96, 97 and 98. Sort of like Schumi’s legendary run, only a few years early and in a different kind of racing. Makes sense why they were friends I guess
5 championships in a row. He is the GOAT at bike setup. Bikes were almost un-ridable before he came along. It was a standing joke that you were not a real rider until you had lost a pinkie finger. The wild crashes that were extremely common when he entered the sport were almost eliminated by the time he retired. Bikes became much easier to ride.
Yeah biker racers are a special breed but Mick Doohan almost stands in his own. It can’t be understated how close he came to losing his leg and returned to riding that year. Bonkers.
I used to work at the TT circuit a few years back.
I remember Lorenzo crashing at the end of the straight shattering his collarbone during qualification.
They immediately flew him to barcelona, performed surgery, pumped him full of painkillers, flew him back to Assen, and he finished 3rd in the race.
Absolute different breed of humans; those motorcycle racers
In 99 having crashed mid season and all but retired he came out to do a lap of honour at Phillip island at the Australian GP. Of course he’s Mick Doohan so having gone around waving to the crowd he drops the hammer and does almost a full flying lap before pulling in the pits. Timing it from the stands he was 2 and a half seconds off the best qualifying time from the day before at i2.
This being a man who literally needed a walking stick to get to and away from the machine.
its so surprising to me that people in motorsports don't know Mick Doohan. But I guess the newer fans are mostly just F1 fans. Imo the only people with better motorsport accomplishments in the paddock are Lewis and maybe Alonso.
Actually many riders in that era used that body position, as the bikes were absolutely feral, and that position allowed you more chance to recover from lost traction. You couldn’t really hold the massive powerslides they do these days, it would just spit you off the high side, so that body position was optimal at the time.
Those early two strokes were absolute rabid animals.
He went through injuries that dwarf even those of Marc Marquez. Quite literally one of if not the most hard bastard in the history of motorbike racing, so he might as well have been carved out of stone
He was very ginger with his left side. Not using his left hand/arm to help himself out. Then when he was out and walking towards Estie, be reached up to his left shoulder like it was hurting. 😬
I wonder if he has a cracked/fractured clavicle and torn rotator cuff. I broke my collarbone and tore the rotator cuff mid last year and he is moving how I was.
He would have been checked out by medical staff after the severity of the crash he had and they would certainly have picked up any broken/cracked bones and prevented him from racing. Muscle/tendon damage might be harder to pick up and he might not have been prohibited from racing depending on the severity.
Though it has to be said, the regulations state that the driver must be able to extract himself from the car without assistance within a certain time, I think maybe 10 seconds, so on that front it doesn’t look like he should have been permitted to race if they knew the extent of his injuries. It could also be that his injuries got worse throughout the race due to the continual forces and stresses.
Yea a lot of the pain and struggle he’s feeling here would be nullified completely with the adrenaline rush he’d get in that situation. It’s a hell of a drug, I carried my mountain bike like 2km with my arm in the shape of an s and only really felt the pain once I got to the trailhead and called for help. Literally felt the adrenaline ware off and the pain hit like a truck
Yeah I feel a lot of people aren't aware just how physically demanding and draining a race is let alone an F1 race. I think I heard that the cockpit is usually 120ishFarenheit, 50ish Celius and they lose like 4-6 pounds, or 2-3 kilos just in one 90 minute race. Plus things like g forces, adrenaline dumps etc. Its insane what they guys push themselves through.
That seems very abusable. Obviously common sense would say that if you’re able to race an f1 car you’re by default in a decent state of health, but I still feel like this is a thing that shouldn’t be self policed. No offence to Jack and this is pretty morbid, but he’s not exactly proving to be a crash adverse driver; can you imagine if he got into a Grosjean style situation while in this condition? He would actually die.
Hell, we had to do an emergency exit test in our 24 hours of Lemons car before every race. If you couldn't unstrap and climb out of the cage with your Hans device and helmet on in <10 seconds you couldn't race
I'd hope it was even more stringent for F1 than $500 shitbox racing
Wouldn’t surprise me if he can get out, especially in an emergency with adrenaline flowing, he’s just avoiding it when he can not to mess with the injury.
I've been hurt to the point where moving normally and limping hurts like hell. The moment fight or fright kicks in it's like you are healed for minutes on end until the heart rate drops.
I think it was at the end of summer break Oscar mentioned it on an Instagram post but idk when it happened but I think he might’ve raced Hungary and Spa with it?
driver experience g-forces when cornering. Like in your car when breaking hard. Only here it is lateral, so side to side.
Normally, you fight against these forces to fix your head into a position.
But young lads get exhausted and can't hold their head fixed anymore. The lateral space is very limited due to helmet and safety systems surrounding the head. So basically, in every corner their helmet moves to the side and rests on the side-wall of the cockpit. It doens't really impact driving performance but it ain't good for your neck/head.
Just watch clips of non-f1 drivers driving an f1 car for a visual explanation. The helmet constantly slams into the side
Thanks, it means a lot! Funnily, reddit has been great to practice (I don't use English irl). I was afraid the neck thing was an idiom or expression I wasn't getting because of my lack of technical knowledge and vocabulary 😂
I would say no shot, these seats are moulded exactly to the drivers body shape so I would guess using another drivers seat would be too uncomfortable. I'd wager they have multiple seats made at the beginning of each season.
Lol holy shit same. I was about to comment what you said at first, but I'm glad I saw yours first. I would have thought that wasn't an option for the races.
Could also be the massive crash he had yesterday combined with running a full race without even a safety car to take a break... But still.
He really is a great guy. I fully believe the only reason why he has so many people who dislike him is because we have so many incredible personalities on the grid who wouldn't look out of place on reality TV.
When he was doing the HAAS bit for the Aus GP, he was actually the nicest driver and sounded genuinely grateful for the opportunities that he had. It shows a lot from his demeanour. Outside of the track, he comes off as a sweetie. I could mention the BRATs but I won't, he seems more human than most. Even Max was pretty down to earth lmao.
Last year in Aus I ended up at the front of Melbourne Walk, in a weird bit where the drivers were held back from us by multiple fences, which Esteban simply jumped over to make sure we all got a chance to see him. Once that happened, the people behind ended up pushing so much I was horizontal hanging over the barrier, Esteban made sure to check whether I was okay or not. He's a good guy.
Esteban races with a chip on his shoulder and it rubs people the wrong way
He’s probably the poorest driver we have. He’s said multiple times it’s why he races so hard because his family sacrificed year of pain for his years of pleasure in F1
Esteban was like that in his early days so it got people angry at him. I always liked him as a person but didn’t like his on track behaviour, honestly over the last 3 years though especially last year he’s really earned my respect. I think his on track personality has matured a lot especially after being paired up with Pierre again.
Honestly the people that have any athlete solely based off their on track/field persona prove to me that those people likely never played organized sports growing up. Once the switch is on it’s an entirely different person and personality from their true self. Look at Brad Marchand in hockey, he is truly one of the most hateable NHL players out there strictly in terms of on ice play, but he’s also a great person yet people act like he’s a serial killer
Sadly in the current era we would seeing barely drivers rising up to F1 who aren't having a lot of funding and more like Sainz types who got a 250k funding every year in karting.
No people dislike him because he dared to race against their favorite racing driver during a race in race cars. Incidentally their fave driver also forgot how to drive with others on track at the time.
Yeah I know out of their 4 collisions only one (Baku) was Ocon’s fault.
Then in Belgium Perez almost killed him on lap 1. Then in Belgium Perez almost killed him on lap 30. And then In Singapore 2018 Perez literally just shoved him into a wall.
And out of the Gasly Collisions, Monaco is completely on Esteban but Australia is 100% on Gasly! And Australia was far worse because it took out both drivers. In Monaco Esteban just took himself out.
I wadded up a motorcycle during a race and was wandering around waaaay more than someone with bones poking out of skin should have been for a few minutes. My heart rate stayed at 180+ for the entire ambulance ride, despite two morphine injections.
When my adrenal system decided to finally come off high alert I was weak as hell and hurt everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I remember pitching a fit when the ER people started to cut my gear off, I didn't want to have to replace it so I stood up and took it off. Thinking about that now makes me sweat.
Done similar with a broken leg, Schumacher tried to extract himself from the car with a double leg fracture too, but couldn’t get his leg to move. Pain and exhaustion are subjective things when the adrenaline kicks in.
That's the key I guess. There's going to be a huge adrenaline crash right after a hard race, during the cooldown lap. The drivers muscles turn to jelly. During the race they'll still be on it, and likely still able to get out if theres an incident.
My friend and I went karting on a indoors track once. She eventually went straight in a corner and "bumped" into a barrier. It looked funny from my perspective at first (like a bumper kart), however the moment I saw her struggle trying to walk my mood changed quickly. We immediately got her checked by a paramedic, however he dismissed it thinking she just bruised it badly. He did tell us if the pain got worse over the weekend she still needed to get things checked in a hospital. Well it did get worse and as it turned out she shattered both of her lower leg bones in both of her legs.
I'm still amazed she was able to stand on those legs and even crawl up and down the stairs in the days before she got checked into the hospital. She needed a couple of surgeries as well, but made a full recovery thankfully.
Adrenaline really is a fucker. I remember hearing Billy Monger say that it made him feel almost no pain after his life-changing F4 crash. Literally almost gives you superhuman powers depending on the situation, whether it be hysterical strength or complete pain supression.
He's being careful here because he can take his time and is sore after the crash the other day, at the very least he's got the seatbelts digging into the bruises they made in the crash, see how he's holding his left arm after getting out. If there was a danger the adrenaline is going to make/let him ignore that pain while he hurries out.
Even at lower levels of the sport it’s a scrutineering requirement to be able to get out within, say, 7 second which iirc is the British F3 requirement.
He must be able to get out the car quickly.
But as I’ve always found, if it’s on fire that’s enough extra motivation!
This happened in Indycar a few years ago at McLaren, when Oliver Awkew hid his concussion from the team out of fear of getting replaced, which when found out about, ultimately got him replaced anyway
Honestly an embarrassment that FOM didn't just level a soft lifetime ban - like refuse his ass any VIP/PIT passes, refuse credentials to be on the grid, just keep his ass away from any track and any teams existence.
Imposible. Franco was in Enstone. And then he flew to Monza to start training. (Don't know if it was related to Jack accident or not)
That being said... suddenly media ban fro Franco looks to be lifted as today he will be on a Spain show back again. A teaser of that show was released minutes after the crash, as well as a Mercado Libre ad with Alpine that was shot time ago but still isn't public.
I personally believe his animosity with other drivers are way overblown, we've seen Max, Gasly and even Fernando acting pretty friendly with him in like pre-race parade and stuff, he's also friend with Lance despite it was Lance who took his seat in Force India and left him teamless for a season, he didn't hold a grudge for that is pretty impressive I would say.
Man, I really feel bad for him. The way he gets out of the car without using his left hand and the way he's limping away makes it clear that the accident the other day really messed him up physically and mentally.
Not sure we can say anything about his mentality, but you're not wrong about physically. That looked like someone who raced a grand prix after a 50g+ impact.
Honestly, Esteban is such a good dude. I truly don’t get the hate and never did. He’s a bit awkward sometimes, sure. But he’s also very genuinely himself and a super kind and soft-spoken guy.
He prolly had to use the reserve driver's seat after his own seat broke in half at the crash, two hours of that and your back will hurt like hell. It happened to Franco on Sergeant's seat when he replaced him and Lewis needed help to get out of the car in 2022 because of the porpoising.
I hit a wall at an indoor carting track near the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut while at a bachelor party and it was painful to drive my 06 Honda Element at any speed for two weeks afterwards. All that to say, I know exactly how he feels
This seems like a massive safety issue. I thought there were requirements for drivers to be able to get out of the car on their own in the event of a crash or car fire
I get being tough and having grit but the FIA really need to give them the escape test after big crashes or injuries. I know what happened to grosjean was a fringe accident but that could happen again an an injured driver might not be able to exit.
He’ll already have been examined by both team and FIA doctors. Not an issue for those asking but what if he’s in a crash. Big difference between climbing out after a full GP with no reason to hurry and climbing out when the car is on fire.. Fire is a great motivator.
This is one of those things in this sport that will have to be addressed. Yes. The cars are a million times safer but the human body is still fragile. Hitting a wall at 100+ MPH while pulling 50 Gs, causing your seat to break in places and then saying he’ll be fine to race on Sunday? Sounds like bullshit to me. Take the choice away from the athlete and make it a rule that you have to sit out for a minimum number of days after this type of shunt.
2.3k
u/Aff_Reddit James Vowles 3d ago
He didn't use his left hand at all. I thought he was gripping the halo from underneath but he's not. His wrist has got to be fucked.
From my 0.2 second glance at his onboards, he does seem to use his wrist throughout the race, but the second he gets into the pits at the end of the race he takes his left hand off the wheel. Maybe just a comfort thing in general, who knows.
At the end of the race he just says "hopping out, thank you again" then proceeds to drop his steering wheel off the car (oops) and motions for the mechanic who is coming to work on the car, to help him both take everything off (idk what the part is called, he's struggling to get situated) and then he gets help
Either way, this week leads into a triple header & if news gets out his wrist is fucked he's not capable of driving.