| silent_jay |
07-25-2009 05:29 PM |
Found this article with pictures from Felipe's in car camera:
Quote:
The moment F1 driver Felipe Massa was knocked unconscious by flying debris during Grand Prix qualifier
Ferrari's Felipe Massa will be brought out of a coma to have a brain scan in a Budapest hospital today after suffering head injuries in a horrifying 170mph crash during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Six days after Henry Surtees, the teenage son of legendary racer John, died as a result of being hit by the detached wheel of a rival car in a Formula Two race at Brands Hatch, Massa, 28, was also hit by stray debris, a rear suspension spring that had fallen off Rubens Barrichello's Brawn car.
The spring - they can weigh as much as one kilo - struck the Brazilian on the front-left side of his helmet yesterday, causing him to career off the track, on to grass and then into a tyre wall at the Hungaroring.
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A loose spring from Rubens Barrichello's car is pictured here just moments before it struck Felipe Massa on the head
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The car part hurtles towards Massa during a qualifying session for the Hungarian F1 Grand Prix
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Massa would have been driving at about 170mph at the moment of impact
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The car approaches the tyre barrier
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Massa's car becomes embedded in the quadruple layer of tyres
Massa hit his head on the steering wheel on impact with the wall and sat motionless in the cockpit as marshals called for medical assistance.
Two ambulances, then additional paramedic backup, arrived. The Ferrari star was carried off on a stretcher and driven to the track's medical centre before being airlifted to the AEK Military Hospital in Budapest, where he had emergency surgery on a fractured skull and was put in intensive care.
Reports suggested he had bone removed from around his eye socket. He was then put in an induced coma. His brother, Eduardo, was by his bedside until the late evening, as Ferrari fans gathered outside the hospital. His parents, Ana Elena and Luiz Antonio, and pregnant wife, Raffella, are flying in from Brazil to be with him.
Last night the Hungarian Defence Ministry said that Massa, who is unlikely to drive again this season, was in a 'satisfactory condition'. 'At the time he was admitted to hospital his condition was stable and he was breathing and blood circulation was normal,' said a spokesman.
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Brazilian Formula One driver Massa is carried out of his car after the accident at the Hungaroring race track in Budapest
'During the course of his examination they established that he suffered serious, life-threatening injuries including loss of consciousness and a fracture of the forehead on the left side and a fracture on the base of the skull.
'He is being cared for in intensive care after surgery on a life-threatening injury and he is now in a stable, satisfactory condition.'
While one of the doctors who had seen Massa warned of possible damage to the driver's brain, nothing can be certain until experts have examined today's scan. Ferrari are considering withdrawing their other driver, Kimi Raikkonen, from today's race. The final session of qualifying was delayed by 20 minutes as Massa's car was hoisted off the track and taken back to the garage, where it was unloaded piece by piece.
As qualifying restarted, a medical helicopter moved the stricken racer to hospital, accompanied by his brother, Eduardo, and manager Nicolas Todt. Team principal Stefano Domenicali soon followed, and they were later joined by fellow Brazilian Barrichello.
It appeared from film and photographs of the incident that Massa's visor came away from the screw on his helmet on impact with the debris, although it remains unclear how his eye and forehead came to be so severely injured. There did not appear to be a hole in the visor.
World champion Lewis Hamilton, who fought a titanic title battle with Massa last year, spoke for the entire paddock when he said: 'I want to send my best wishes to Felipe. It looked quite a big crash, so I hope he's OK.'
It is 15 years since a Formula One driver last died - Ayrton Senna at Imola in 1994, a loss which caused the then nine-year-old Hamilton to weep for his fallen hero.
Yesterday, Hamilton said: 'I saw the [Massa] crash. It's very scary. It has to be a big shock for any driver to have that happen, and very unfortunate because rarely do you see it.'
Referring to the Surtees tragedy, he added: 'For two incidents to happen in such a short period of time . . . we can't ignore it.'
Barrichello, who immediately went to see Massa before he was flown to hospital, said: 'I wanted to be there in case there was nobody from his family there.
'We are Brazilians and sometimes we have a family, sometimes we don't, and when we wake up all we want to see is someone we know. Felipe had a cut on his head, which could have been from the part of my car that was on the track.
'He was talking, he was moving, he was conscious, but they have to analyse the cut. He was moving his arms and legs.
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Medical staff lift Massa into an ambulance
They had to make him sleep because he was very agitated. With that, they sedated him to calm him down before they moved him to hospital.'
Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone arrived at the hospital at 10.30pm local time and spent 15 minutes with Massa and his doctors.
He looked stressed and insisted that there would be an immediate review of safety procedures. 'This is not nice,' he said. 'I thought we had seen an end to all this sort of thing. It's mad. This is just a few days after one death and it is very disturbing.
'Professor Sid Watkins [F1 medical chief] deals with this and I have spoken to him this evening. He is going to get on to it straight away.'
The problem with Barrichello's rear suspension caused his team-mate and championship leader Jenson Button to have the failed part replaced on his own car as a precaution. The work was not completed in time for the start of the final session, which meant Button completed only one run rather than two and, therefore, was heavier by about four laps' worth of fuel because he had burned off less by the time he put in his final flying lap.
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The injured driver is airlifted by helicopter to hospital
Qualifying ended in confusion with the time screens wiped out and no one knowing the order of the grid.
Button will start in eighth, his lowest position of the season, which makes it tough to withstand the advance of his nearest title rivals, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, who start second and third behind Renault's Fernando Alonso on pole. He said: 'We're a little bit off the Red Bulls but I was happy with the car. We're probably just a 10th [of a second per lap] off their pace.
'I'm fuelled heavy for the race, which could be good, but we're so far down I'm not sure it will make any difference.'
Between Button and the Red Bulls will be Hamilton, who will start from a season-best fourth on the grid. With the KERS booster fitted on his McLaren, the British driver could yet compete for a podium finish.
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The destroyed car of Ferrari Formula One driver Felipe Massa after his accident
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Eerily similar to the accident that claimed Sertes live last weekend at Brands Hatch.
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Just saw that crash, what a freak accident that was that the tether broke off the tire, and he was only 18, sympathies go out to his family, that was terrible to watch. |
