How come Colapinto was cleared to race after a 50g crash?

[u/ChocolatePizza2121]

Not even just Colapinto but also other drivers. I'm no expert in physics or a doctor but that seems like a lot of force on your body and I don't see how anyone could be healthy enough to do a race the day after. I'm just wondering how come drivers are able to be okay after a big crash like that?

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[u/Ing0_]

I don't believe g is a super useful metric in how hurt someone is. The measured 50g is only for a split second and there a lot of other variables that are more important for a crash. a big g impact means a big accident has happened and a possibility of big injury. Therefore they take it very serious. But if you are lucky you are good to go race as Colapinto could.

[u/gnowbot → u/Ing0_]

The structure of the car may decelerate and experience more than 50g’s before the driver’s belts have even fully caught the driver’s own deceleration.

Like if a marble jumps off a ledge onto hard ground, it may experience 100g’s. But when a person jumps off that ledge, they have squishy shoes, bend their knees, etc.

[u/Economy_Link4609 → u/gnowbot]

My understanding is the g-force sensor is in the driver's helmet - so the measurement they got is what they actually experienced vs what the car experienced.

[u/gnowbot → u/Economy_Link4609]

Well today I learned! Thanks for teaching me that.

[u/ChocolatePizza2121 → u/Ing0_]

Aaahhh that makes sense, thank you!

[u/scuderia91]

Because we’ve spent decades improving the safety of these cars so that accidents that would’ve seen a driver in hospital with serious injuries now leave them with little more than some bruising.

[u/goodguyLTBB]

I am no expert either. However those F1 cars and suits have a lot of padding (I think?) that lessen the actual impact. It’s very extraordinary. Ironically an F1 cars would probably be one of the safest cars. I mean look at Grojesan 200+ km/h into what was essentially no barriers straight into a piece of metal. Not just he walked away, he races at indy later. And F1 improved safety since then

[u/Big_Mathematician406 → u/goodguyLTBB]

There’s little to no padding in race suits. The driver wears fireproof base layer. The race suit is fireproof too. Some drivers wear a knee pad to stop/reduce knees knocking together.

[u/ZiKyooc]

The G thing is only an indicator that triggers the assessment, it's not a measure of the consequence.

If there's no concussion, which can be assessed through different tests, nor any other capacity impairing consequences, as assessed by professionals, that should be fine?

[u/Raaf325]

The HANS system they use prevents neck injuries. The rest of their bodies are fixed firmly in a seat that is molded for their own body.

[u/wasteoftime93]

Besides what people mentioned already I think being a superfit athlete also helps.

[u/ChocolatePizza2121 → u/[deleted]]

Lol no, idk what question you read was but I never asked why I didn't know the answer. Hopefully you can actually answer the question next time instead of being snarky.

[u/Even-Juggernaut-3433]

If you’ve followed the research on cte you’ll know it’s not big hits that cause the problem it’s the high number of “sub-concussive” hits. A single massive impact A) can be diffused by the crash structures and survival cell and B) is not necessarily more likely to cause neurological injury than lots of smaller ones.

[u/ChocolatePizza2121 → u/Even-Juggernaut-3433]

I hadn't heard of cte before so I had to look it up but thats really interesting, I might look into it. Thank you :)