Safety
What exactly was that brake explosion on pit entry for Verstappen? Would it have been dangerous if he had been in the pit lane alongside pit crews?
I can’t see if there was any sort of larger projectile. But at the least, it looks like the dust/debris hits the pit entry wall pretty hard when Verstappen came in.
If he had been passing by the pit crews, could that have caused an injury/safety issue?
Additionally, does anyone know F1s rules for bringing the car back when there is an ongoing fire or anything that could be deemed dangerous to the pit crews?
Regulations are organized in three sections:
- Technical for the design criteria of the car
- Sporting for how the competition is executed
- Financial for how money is spent
yeah. that’s why everyone in the pit lane should be wearing a fire suit and helmet. i know the team bosses don’t but i think they should. imagine a loose wheel hitting a pit wall box like one did on that cameraman back in the day.
Oh right I see what you mean, I meant you couldn't just build a pit wall but yeah, I see no reason for anyone to be in the pit lane at any time unless they are actively doing something that requires them to be there.
It was not the brake that exploded, it was the tire violently decompressing due to the heat of the nearby brake fire.
It could have been dangerous depending on how close the pit crew was and how high the tire pressure was, but it probably wouldn't have hurt anyone. Just made a loud pop.
Yes, my point exactly, tires blowing up can and will hurt you. Point black rubber bullet can kill you. They dotn work as great at long range(in killing people)
No it was forced out because of the shock of the tire exploding. From the above angle you can see it comes from behind the wheel and is fired mostly backwards in the normal path hot air would take when leaving the car.
Yes, and people back then were making the exact same mistake that people are here. It was confirmed shortly after by Williams that it was not the tyre.
Except you can quite clearly see all of the brakes are present and complete when Max came into the pits. The only part missing was the cake tin which we saw getting gently spat out right before pit entry.
I thought it was the tire at first, but video of Max pulling into the pit box showed the tire wasn't deflated. It may have been the calipers exploding from the brake fluid boiling.
You can pretty clearly see the side wall is damaged as Max comes into the pit box. And as the explosion happens you can viably see the car drop down on that corner.
From above you can see the explosion appears to come from behind/inside the wheel however i believe this is just because that is where the brake dust is being blown out from the shock of the tire exploding.
In the past when I’ve seen this it’s been caused by the rim failing due to the heat; it deforms and then the air escapes suddenly. Not especially dangerous in the grand scheme of things
Mixture of tyre and the "cake tin". Hard to say exactly what was what the temperatures made it into a mangled mess of carbon and rubber.
The explosion looked nasty, but you very rarely see them go to that magnitude. I think it could have caused injury, but pulling into the pits with brakes on fire / overheated isn't uncommon or usually dangerous. If it was an engine fire I imagine VER would have pulled off somewhere near where HAM retired and jumped out straight away.
This was my first thought as well. I haven’t tried to watch the clip again, but I immediately thought it was a tire failure from heat build up.
As far as the OP’s question on the safety aspect of it, I’m not sure if the drivers are made aware of locations of the track that have the most fire/safety specific marshals. I myself would think that pit lane would be one of the best places with the most personnel dedicated to extinguishers and the like. Obviously the shrapnel was an unlucky turn of events that Max didn’t predict, but as he came to a rolling stop, there were 2 full size fire extinguishers already on the corner of the car.
The drivers do receive a map of the circuit with the marshaling post and fire posts at the pilot briefing. They don’t really pay attention, but yes they are aware. You can see the fire marshal post marked with an F on a red background, at some of the points where you see a break in the safety barriers. (I circled the marking on the photo from Baku circuit website:
Locations of fire response vehicles (I.e. fire truck or circuit FRV are not marked in any visible way for the driver and the pit lane is usually considered to be the safest place for a fire related issue, as there are extinguishers in each of the pit boxes (team) and a fire marshal on the pit wall every two garages, IIRC and usually some large capacity extinguishing systems also available within a very short timeframe (think 50-100 liter extinguishers).
If you watch the replay as they were extinguishing the fire, the disk was still visibly intact. The "explosion" was the tire rupturing. It had blown a hole in the sidewall as the internal pressure continued to climb and the rubber was weakened from the extreme heat build up from the fire.
If you watch the telemetry max was below the pit lane speed limit as he entered put entry and was out of the way of the other cars on track. He had known that he was limited on brake performance and radioed to GP that he had no brakes.
It was deflated, but they are built so that they will support the cars weight without air pressure for a short period of time. Similar to the Goodyear run flat road tires. This is to help the driver remain in control of the car when they get a puncture at speed. You can tell that there was no air pressure by looking at the shape of the top of the tire. It was flat and did not have the usual convex shape. Watch the onboard carefully as he completes the last half lap, and you will notice that the tire gets slightly larger as the heat builds within the tire.
i don't think that there has been any real information on what exactly exploded in this case, but if i had to guess, it was probably a pressure bearing brake component, e. g. a brake line or something.
the high temperatures likely lead to a pressure bildup somewhere in the system, eventually causing something to burst (something with enough pressure to blow the wheel cover clean off!)
what's also notable is the color of the smoke - it was black, not white, so it was either carbon from the wheel cover or carbon/brake dust from the brake system being flung out.
as for the danger, i can't imagine that this would be particularly safe to be next to. the pit crew do have protective gear and helmets, but i can't imagine that the impact of a wheel cover hitting you in the shins/knees would be particularly painless.
We often see cars(the Astons specifically) shed a large amount of brake dust at that same point during pit entry. I have a feeling that Max just auto-piloted into the pits and did the normal just stand on the brake to get under pit speed. Due to the crispy nature of the outer layers of carbon this resulted in a very large, very black burst of brake dust. IMO...
Imagine hitting the breaks on autopilot, not slowing enough a nd getting a penalty for speeding due in next race. That would be a Vettel type of ruling
This makes a lot of sense. My concern was that the explosion could’ve happened at any random time. But if it came from harder braking for pit lane speed limit, that seems much less dangerous
Max had been coasting for awhile before he entered the pit lane with the intention of retiring. This is a very different braking situation than coming in fast during a racing lap.
It was the tire exploding. The high heat from the brakes causes the tire pressure to increase massively.
You can see after the explosion that the right rear rides lower than the rest of the car.
It would indeed be kind of dangerous if it was alongside a pitcrew which is why they wear the fireproof suits and helmets in the pits.
I’m more curious as to what caused the failure. Not a lot of info coming from the camp to say what it was. Seemed to be something prep/setup, but just curious. The explosion looked to be tire/cake tin, and brake dust.
Don’t know that was the break for sure. Looks like it could have been the tire over heating and over pressure from the flames. I’ve worked EMS for the last 20ish years and I distinctly remember a roll over MVA where the car was on fire and the tyres blew from the flames.
i mean i think his brake exploded from the amount of force the moving car was putting on it, so if he had slowed/stopped it probably would not have failed so catastrophically. But yeah it looked like a shotgun blast of carbon ceramic chunks and dust, imagine it would have not felt ideal
Given the condition of the car would it not have been safer to stop where he is and get out of the car immediately? Why drag it into the pits where there's several other people in a confined space?
for a brake disk to fly off a car you'd need a combination of it completely shearing off the hub AND the caliper to completely let loose AND some sort of horizontal force on the entire thing.. like an explosion
I lost a brake disc and caliper from vertical force. I had hit a rough driveway entry pretty hard but everything held up enough at that point. As i was driving the next day the wheel came off taking the rotor with it. caliper bracket broke as the rotor came loose.
the hub assembly and axle shaft had sheared off from the initial impact.
I had my own question about this occurrence: could they not fix it and get him back in the race?
We see front wings and stuff get replaced in the pits. I understand why most teams wouldn’t try, but this particular car and driver I feel could make up a 1 lap deficit. Maybe not for the win but probably in the points at least.
Likely the area is too hot work on safely and you don’t know what damage has been done to critical components. Verstappen wouldn’t win anymore and the risks aren’t worth a single point. Even if they fix it within five minutes, he’d be out of contention for anything really.
Not quickly, there were a lot of parts that would have been damaged by the fire and would need replacing.
Once they had replaced the suspension/hub/brake/driveshaft etc, the car would need aligning and the brake would need to be bedded in and there is probably a heap of sensor calibration required as well.
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