During the accident that Guanyu Zhou had at the start of the British Grand Prix, everyone was alarmed that the upper roll bar of the Alfa Romeo C42 might not withstand the impact at the time of the rollover of the car, and only the Halo system saved the Chinese rider.
At the FIA press conference in Austria, Frederik Wasser, the team leader, cited the following data: the impact energy was twice the maximum loads that the upper roll bar must withstand in mandatory crash tests.
“The investigation into the circumstances of the accident continues. We shared our information with the FIA, and the first assumptions are that the impact force in the accident was regarding twice the loads that the safety arc can withstand in tests, ”said Vasseur. – If you look at the asphalt of the track, then there was a trace four or five centimeters deep.
At some point, it doesn’t matter what loads are used in the tests, because something can always happen on the track when this level is exceeded. Of course, we ourselves will take certain measures, and we will interact with the FIA in order to understand how safety can be improved.
In any case, I try to keep a positive attitude, because even following such a serious accident, nothing dramatic happened. Thanks to decisions aimed at raising safety standards, fuel leaks were avoided, otherwise events might have developed according to the worst-case scenario.”
At yesterday’s meeting of the Formula 1 Commission, it was decided to increase the budgets of the teams by 3.1% to offset inflation-related cost increases, but Vasseur stressed that the cost of compensating for the serious damage that the team suffered due to the accident will not lead to cost overruns. funds.
“I don’t feel like remembering yesterday’s discussion,” he said. – The fundamental difference is that in this situation I do not have to think regarding the budget limit. I only care regarding my own budget, because our expenses are still less than the level at which budgets are limited.
I do not need to go to the bank for a loan to pay for spare parts. It only means that I will have to save money on upgrading the machine or at the expense of some other expense items, but this will have to be done, and we can solve this problem. ”