WHat was the mistake here? (RIng accident)

[RDMcG]

Ate in this vid, he has an accident on a dry track in a GT3.
He seems to be a competent driver, and for those of you who are experienced Ring drivers I am wondering what your take is. My reason for asking is not academic...I once had a lairy moment at this precise spot, and I am a less competent driver than this chap....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMYsSTyDVA8

[VX Foxy]

RDMcG said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMYsSTyDVA8

[AB]

Too fast into it?

I'm absolutely no expert by any means btw, just an idle guess.

[Muzzlehatch]

My laptop speaker are useless, so I can't hear the sound very well. But it looks like a few things came together at the same time:
- the line in the braking zone was wrong (you want approach so that you stay left, there's more grip there)
- the driver started braking right on the bump, effectively lenghthening his braking distance too much

But those didn't really matter too much, you might be forced to do both the above in a racing situation. It was still salveageable. But then...

- in a panic, the driver whacked on loads of lock whilst still braking, effectively taking away all front end braking capacity, and simply understeered into the armco. PSM may be useful, but you can't defy the laws of physics.

His only option was to have stayed left, gone through the gap in the armco, and rejoined at Hohe Acht.

[RDMcG]

That's very helpful. Will be back there next year again, an hopeful will keep it all in one piece

[DocJock]

What he said ^^^

It also sounded like he kept his foot on the brake over the little crest, briefly locking up his fronts as well.

[Fidgits]

as said, braked on the bump, lost the front end, tried to steer more rather than recover..

[Joe911]

Compare/contrast with this lap - same guy, same car, same bend:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8fXUvDI5oQ
(time offset 5:30)

My guess would be he didn't get on the brakes sufficiently at the start of the braking. - I really don't think the crest there is an issue. Do we know that there was no mechanical failure (loss of ABS, etc)? Has anyone asked "Iceman" (WTF) why is happened?

[Joe911]

Am I going blind, or did he fail to change down during the braking (and thus have no engine braking)?

[flemke]

Joe911 said:

Am I going blind, or did he fail to change down during the braking (and thus have no engine braking)?

That's a good point. By any chance do you know the circuit at all?

He looks to be going into the bend in 4th, whereas in that car its 2nd; no way 3rd.
Initially he turns in and the front end responds. It's only when he needs to turn more and nothing happens that he comes unstuck. He was just going in too fast. I don't know that I'd agree with muzzlehatch that the right place to turn-in is from the far left, although it is true that it's pretty grippy there. He did, however, turn in too early.
Because of the lack of downshifting, it may well be that he's just had "brain-fade". That would also fit with too much speed and too-early turn-in. I'd guess also that he never looked or thought about around the bend; he seemed to be looking straight ahead the whole time.
You could see on several previous bends where he missed the apex, normally the result of too much speed into the bend or poor braking technique. When people make unforced errors on that bend, it's usually past the apex, when they're on the power a bit too early and a camber change makes the rear end loose. It's also a misleading bend; it's essentially a 150 deg hairpin, although because of the Karussel 200 deg hairpin up the road, the Steilstrecke does not seem as tight as it really is.

[RDMcG]

Many thanks for some evidently very experienced comments. Worth keeping in mind.

[VX Foxy]

flemke said:

He did, however, turn in too early...
You could see on several previous bends where he missed the apex

I'm no ringmeister and I don't wish to knock 'Iceman' but I would say you're right. He seemed to often turn in too early and not let the car drift out the the edge of the track on exit, sawing unnecessarily at the wheel...but I wasn't there - just my impression

[Muzzlehatch]

flemke said:

Joe911 said:

Am I going blind, or did he fail to change down during the braking (and thus have no engine braking)?

That's a good point. By any chance do you know the circuit at all?

Joe may have been round once or twice. If you didn't know that, then you should be rather concerned

Then again, you shouldn't need engine braking. That's what brakes are for (unless your brakes are cooked, which doesn't generally happen with PCCBs [IME]).

flemke said:

It's only when he needs to turn more and nothing happens that he comes unstuck. He was just going in too fast. I don't know that I'd agree with muzzlehatch that the right place to turn-in is from the far left, although it is true that it's pretty grippy there. He did, however, turn in too early.

To be more specific, the wider (and grippier) entry enables more speed to be carried through a wider radius of Steilstracke, thus completing the corner without such alarming consequences (plus you can get on the throttle earlier for the run up to Karussell).

flemke said:

it may well be that he's just had "brain-fade". That would also fit with too much speed and too-early turn-in. I'd guess also that he never looked or thought about around the bend; he seemed to be looking straight ahead the whole time. You could see on several previous bends where he missed the apex, normally the result of too much speed into the bend or poor braking technique. When people make unforced errors on that bend, it's usually past the apex, when they're on the power a bit too early and a camber change makes the rear end loose. It's also a misleading bend; it's essentially a 150 deg hairpin, although because of the Karussel 200 deg hairpin up the road, the Steilstrecke does not seem as tight as it really is.

Agree with all of that. Look where you want to go, not where you're frightened of going.

[duglia]

this is the topic started by the crasher on the italian ringers forum (you may want to use an online translation service)

http://www.ringers.it/ringers-forum/topic.asp?TOPI...

and this is the bend

[Joe911]

Muzzlehatch said:

Then again, you shouldn't need engine braking. That's what brakes are for (unless your brakes are cooked, which doesn't generally happen with PCCBs [IME])

I did not mean to say that the lack of engine braking in itself caused the crash ... and I agree that brakes are for slowing down ... however, you normally get some engine braking whether you want it or not.

The point I was really making was that normally you would approach that bend from 5th gear in a 911 and normally go through the bend in 2nd - those gears could potentially be 4th and 3rd, but you would not want to go around the bend in 5th or 4th. So you do need to scrub speed off - it's not just a light brush.

So ... what I would question is what the driver was doing/thinking that at a high speed entry to a 2nd gear corner he does not change down. Surely it indicates something wrong - a simple lapse of concentration might be the reason - and we've all done it.

I really don't buy all this discussion about line. You can enter that bend from left or right and still get safely round. He may well not have been on the ideal line, but then the bend is wide enough that if you get the braking slightly wrong you just go in a bit deeper and turn a bit later.

The crash was not because of a slight mis-judgement of line or braking points - a reasonable driver can just cope with that and recover (and he does appear to be at least a reasonable driver).

He came in way too fast and clearly was not doing what he would normally do - given that he forgot to downshift - maybe he also forgot to get on the brakes until way too late. Choosing a different line would not have helped him sufficiently.

IMHO

[flemke]

Muzzlehatch said:

flemke said:

Joe911 said:

Am I going blind, or did he fail to change down during the braking (and thus have no engine braking)?

That's a good point. By any chance do you know the circuit at all?

Joe may have been round once or twice. If you didn't know that, then you should be rather concerned

Then again, you shouldn't need engine braking. That's what brakes are for (unless your brakes are cooked, which doesn't generally happen with PCCBs [IME]).

Engine braking is obviously not the major component of braking force, although, as Joe says, it does help.
At this point on the circuit, the brakes have been barely touched for the last 2.5km, so unless your fluid's bad, there's never going to be an issue.

Muzzlehatch said:

flemke said:

It's only when he needs to turn more and nothing happens that he comes unstuck. He was just going in too fast. I don't know that I'd agree with muzzlehatch that the right place to turn-in is from the far left, although it is true that it's pretty grippy there. He did, however, turn in too early.

To be more specific, the wider (and grippier) entry enables more speed to be carried through a wider radius of Steilstracke, thus completing the corner without such alarming consequences (plus you can get on the throttle earlier for the run up to Karussell).

Far out on the left (just prior to reaching the normal turn-in point) the tarmac is the grippiest - that is true, and why it's a good spot to go to in the wet.
The problem is that the road there (like most of the circuit) has a bit of a crown in it, so if you're far out on the left you need to make it over the crown, and the car wants to tip a bit when you do that.

The chap's initial error happens at about 5:20. There's that slight left kink about 100m before the turn-in point. Prior to that kink, the car had run out to the left (which is natural), but then he lets it stay on the left all the way up to the kink. This is completely wrong (he does the same thing in the other lap to which Joe linked). After the car had naturally run out to the left, he should have brought it back over to the right, in order to approach the kink from a more open angle (in effect, a late apex at the kink). Because he had the wrong line into the kink, he had the wrong line out of it, which meant that he would have had to get even more speed off to make it around Steilstrecke.

muzzlehatch said:

flemke said:

it may well be that he's just had "brain-fade". That would also fit with too much speed and too-early turn-in. I'd guess also that he never looked or thought about around the bend; he seemed to be looking straight ahead the whole time. You could see on several previous bends where he missed the apex, normally the result of too much speed into the bend or poor braking technique. When people make unforced errors on that bend, it's usually past the apex, when they're on the power a bit too early and a camber change makes the rear end loose. It's also a misleading bend; it's essentially a 150 deg hairpin, although because of the Karussel 200 deg hairpin up the road, the Steilstrecke does not seem as tight as it really is.

Agree with all of that. Look where you want to go, not where you're frightened of going.

The interaction between one's view and one's physical actions is absolutely fascinating. For us all, the natural thing is to look straight ahead, rather than looking long. Looking long makes for more smoothness and, often, greater overall pace...however, failing to take sufficient notice of what is happening in the immediate foreground has got me into trouble more than once. I think that, on circuits, you need to work out a pattern of eye movement, bend by bend, that is mostly looking (and imagining) long, but very, very frequently (maybe 2x/sec) checking the foreground.

Cheers.

[Zumbruk]

Wearing string backed driving gloves.

[Evangelion]

I think he just got lost and forgot to brake. There are a couple of bends at about that point that look like left-handers, but actually go right.

[sperminator]

He didn't adjust for the fact his tyres were cooked. There was a lot of screeching going on all the way through the lap on which he crashed and the previous lap. He also appeared to be cramming his braking and changing too much and wasn't giving himself enough thinking time.

[flemke]

Evangelion said:

I think he just got lost and forgot to brake. There are a couple of bends at about that point that look like left-handers, but actually go right.

He knew the circuit well; I don't think he got lost!