I agree, F1 and motorsports safety has gone a long way since the early days of the sport. It's like what the FAA says about air safety 'Air safety regulations are written in blood'. It holds true to motorsports safety, most if not all the advancements and innovations came about because of a death or horrific accident in the sports. The death of Dale Earnhardt (RIP) prompted NASCAR to make HANS devices mandatory for drivers and added safety as a main consideration when they designed the car of tomorrow platform. We owe it to these brave men that gave so much and in this case, lost their lives, so that organizing bodies like the FIA start to realize that safety of the driver is of utmost importance. Watching the film really makes you appreciate everything that's in place for driver safety today and accidents like Robert Kubica's and most recently, Heiki Kovalainen's, although horrific are survivable. Rest in Peace to those who have passed away in motorsports doing what they love.

 

Agree, seeing the guy try to put out the fire and roll over the car while others watched was difficult to say the least. Second was seeing what looked like a rather minor accident only to see the car burst into flames as folks tried to get the guy out of the bent up nose of the car.

I showed the video to a friend but have not and will not let my wife see it. As it stands she thinks its quiet exciting, I don't know if she really understands the reality of some of the risk... overall however thank god for the safety designed into these cars we drive as overall they are light years safer than cars of even last generation.

As it stands I am more and more inclined to put in a cage, fire suppression and a real good seat and put myself in a bubble wrap.

Bubble wrap is light you know.

 

tough to watch...RIP

 

so sad.. speechless

 

there is no question that david was a hero...but am I the only one who noticed that after he grabbed the fire extinguisher out of the hands of the guy that he didn't know how to operate it?

there were a few good seconds before he started spraying it....did anyone also notice that since he wasn't trained in firefighting that perhaps he didn't use the best technique? i mean he sorta just wildly and randomly sprayed....

playing devil's advocate....is it possible that all this led to the guy's death? what if someone who was properly trained had the fire extinguisher? no delay in spraying and perhaps the fire would have been put out?'

again, there is no question he had the best intentions and that he was a hero

 

If I remember right the course worker who ran in front of the car also killed the driver. I think the fire extinguisher or something clipped the drivers head. Basically anything that hits you in the head at 150+ is going to kill you. If you notice at the end of the video they show the driver pulled off.

 

It seemed the workers already wrote the driver off as being dead and didn't have the urgency to out the fire.

 

in a clip of that specific accident on youtube, david said he could hear his friend crying for help through the flames....which is why he kept trying....

 

rip to all those great drivers.. that video made me fight back tears

 

That was one of the most depressing things I've ever seen. I'm a huge motorsports fan but I never knew about the Williamson/Purley incident, or the Pryce/cornerworker crash. So sad and so needless.

RIP to every one of them. It is so unfortunate that some must pass for safety advancements to happen so other lives can be saved.

The corner workerss were clearly incompetent. It didn't look like he was randomly spraying to me, it looked like he was spraying at the base of the fire as he should have.

 

Some of these are downright hard to watch. It's good to see what strides we've made in safety to this date.

 

Impressive footage.
RIP to all those great drivers.

 

+1

My wife was watching F1 Review when I started watching the vid, and she heard the music and wanted to know what I was watching ... I told her that it wasn't for her. Although I did tell her the subject of the clip today, I'm not about to let her watch it.

l8r)

 

Horrific! My respects to all those professional drivers who risk there lives on race tracks across the world.