Driver Survives A 75G Crash

Kubica's crash data disclosed
By Mathias Brunner and Pablo Elizalde
Wednesday, June 20th 2007, 11:27 GMT

Data from the Robert Kubica's horrific accident during the Canadian Grand Prix has been disclosed, showing the Pole survived a 75-G impact.
Kubica made contact with Toyota's Jarno Trulli when trying to pass the Italian, the BMW Sauber driver losing his front wing and going off track.
Data showed the Pole impacted against the wall at 230 km/h, and the G-forces on Kubica peaked at around 75 G in a millisecond.
The onboard accident data recorder (ADR) is built in the BMW Sauber car, placed behind the driver below the fuel tank. The device, roughly 15 by 15 centimetres big, is capable of logging data from the whole race.
The data was studied at Indianapolis by former Lotus engineer Peter Wright, now head of the FIA safety commission, together with his colleagues Andy Mellor and Hubert Gramling.
A report by them came to the conclusion that all the safety measures­ - survival cell, enhanced crash boxes, HANS device, cockpit head rest and helmet -­ worked perfectly.
"While we were completely shocked about the violence of the accident, we were over the moon to see Robert relatively unharmed and were very content about the behaviour of the chassis as survival cell," said BMW Sauber's technical director Willy Rampf.
"We are never doing any compromises regarding the chassis, never going nearly to the limit regarding weight for instance. We stay always on the safe side and that payed off.
"One must not forget that such a cell is quite complex, consisting of over 1,000 parts of carbon fibre, Kevlar, honeycomb structures and metal."