Motorsport Off Topic Thread

Someone saying the CCTV footage still shows the crash seeming odd. Rumours that Alonso's team think maybe something failed on the car. The story about him not remembering parts of his life before the crash are now being rumoured that when he came around he still thought he was a Ferrari driver and someone claiming that Honda/Mclaren only have three separate ways to prevent electric shocks while all the other teams have five different ways to protect the driver.

There might be absolutely nothing wrong but it all adds up to sounding exceedingly odd. Vettel/photographer that saw the incident both say it was odd and the car just turned off. It was a very minor shunt yet Alonso lost conciousness. His helmet only measured a 15g hit while the car measured 30g(but the side can't absorb anything... some people insist). Other drivers have been perfectly fine with much larger impacts.

Even this press statement is bizarre, the belaboured "there is absolutely, 100% certainly nothing at all wrong with him... but he won't be racing" really only comes across as... there is something wrong, be it with Alonso or with Alonso not wanting to get in that car currently.

AS for second-impact-syndrome, it's worth realising that the wiki article also says it's mostly guessed at and the important part is people still showing symptoms. YOu can get a concussion and minor swelling, it goes down in hours and is a non problem 2 days later. SIS is almost entirely referring to the situation where you still have symptoms and the brain is still recovering. Liken it to a hairline fracture then taking another large hit on the same bone and it's however many times more likely to break, yet when the hairline fracture has healed there is no reason to believe it is more likely to break. In this case hairline fracture being a standard concussion and a bone breaking being serious brain damage.

If doctors have scanned his brain, find zero evidence of injury and he's showing zero symptoms, he's passed the point where SIS is considered a risk.
 
Westyfield2 said:
Is it just me that thinks there's more to the Alonso crash than we're being told?
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Not me. My head can get around what happened and why there was so little damage to the car (which in itself was the problem).

It was a freakish set of circumstances that he was just unlucky with.

In light of how unlikely the car is to finish in Melbourne (qualifying, let alone the race :p) it was always going to be the sensible choice if there was any doubt whatsoever.



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drunkenmaster said:
Someone saying the CCTV footage still shows the crash seeming odd. Rumours that Alonso's team think maybe something failed on the car. The story about him not remembering parts of his life before the crash are now being rumoured that when he came around he still thought he was a Ferrari driver and someone claiming that Honda/Mclaren only have three separate ways to prevent electric shocks while all the other teams have five different ways to protect the driver.
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Where the hell does that lot come from?

Other than the memory loss, which Dennis confirmed.
 
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The point is they are saying in their statement there is no doubt. That is where Mclaren look stupid, incompetent or hiding something. If there is still even the slightest symptoms of the concussion he shouldn't race and it's no big deal, but you also can't say he's completely fine and doctors say there is nothing wrong. With concussions doctors will clear you when you stop showing symptoms and everything is fine, they'll recommend more rest if there is even a hint of still having problems, it's one or the other, Mclaren is claiming both.
 
drunkenmaster said:
With concussions doctors will clear you when you stop showing symptoms and everything is fine, they'll recommend more rest if there is even a hint of still having problems, it's one or the other, Mclaren is claiming both.
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That's not the case in either football or rugby in the UK any longer and I heard a few weeks back that rugby was pushing for a longer minimum recovery period (I don't know which code it was though).

I read that a concussion doesn't show in scans, I guess because concussions themselves don't involve bleeding on or in the brain.

Alonso is probably feeling perfectly fine now and might have been for nearly a week now. His brain will look fine in scans too, and probably would have done immediately following the crash and in the hospital. The risk of a secondary incident causing issues doesn't depend on what the driver feels like and the tests they do.

Concussions can be complex, and even doctors and medical infrastructures don't fully understand them, with differing opinions and practises from country to country and even institution to institution. There's been a marked increase in the amount of research being done (in rugby and football in the UK and American football in the USA, at least) in the last few years to understand concussions in sport better and what is needed to lessen the guesswork involved.
 
UTmaniac said:
Remember Jenson getting concussion at Monaco back in the BAR days?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/2952066.stm

Pretty sure he was not kept away from racing for weeks like Alonso has been.

More serious Alonso case that is being kept out of media and/or improved safety protocol?
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That was a decade ago and as I've just said, in the post above yours, they're currently being extra-careful about concussion in some sporting arenas because of the level of uncertainty around multiple concussions within a short space of time.

In 2011 Perez was cleared for Montreal too after his Monaco crash, but pulled out after he started feeling dizzy in free practice. That was two weeks after his concussion. As I said, even the doctors don't know sometimes because the tests simply don't give them the answers they need.
 
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The conspiracy theorist inside me suspects that Alonso may assess the progress of the team.
If the team produce a car which is a disaster, he may miss many more GPs.
Worst case scenario - he will end up signing for another team in 2016, having decided on taking this year off.
I suspect that if McLaren had produced a competitive car, he wouldn't miss any races.

Being more realistic, he probably is injured and doesnt want to take any chances. Whats the point in rushing back, just to complete half race distance in one of the slowest cars on the grid?
 
sunama said:
The conspiracy theorist inside me suspects that Alonso may assess the progress of the team.
If the team produce a car which is a disaster, he may miss many more GPs.
Worst case scenario - he will end up signing for another team in 2016, having decided on taking this year off.
I suspect that if McLaren had produced a competitive car, he wouldn't miss any races.

Being more realistic, he probably is injured and doesnt want to take any chances. Whats the point in rushing back, just to complete half race distance in one of the slowest cars on the grid?
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Calling it! :D
 
Phew, a little longer before I have to suffer Alonso driving for that ****. Have the year off Alonso. Make your own car out of wood and pram wheels, it will be faster and more reliable.
 
McLaren don't realistically have title shot this year, so why risk Alonso after he's had a bang on the head?

Button has some experience with a concussion after Monaco 2003.
 
It is a great shame he won't be racing in Melbourne, but I don't see anything sinister in this at all apart from the normal poor McLaren PR that is so rigid and corporate yet wants to try and be cool and engaging.

It seems to be he's had a hefty blow to his head - not necessarily an impact but enough of a deceleration that his brain has bounced around inside his skull enough to concuss him. Understanding of brain injury has advanced enormously in recent years, with the significant outcome that time is a huge healer and that impact of another injury on top of a partial recovery could have devastating consequences, either immediately or in years and decades to come.

Safety first, and as much as I want to see Alonso in the car for Melbourne, the priority must be the long term safety and well-being of the driver. Another crash, however innocuous, could have serious health implications in the years ahead.

Comparisons with other crashes, just because they are crashes too, are irrelevant. It is the impact to the driver that's significant, and a driver experiencing 15g could easily sustain far worse head injuries than one at twice the impact.
 
Amus are now reporting that data from the crash still backs up that is was a very strange crash. Something Vettel stated, the photographer and Brundle is now saying as well.

Supposedly the data is that he entered turn 3 at 210kph, which afaik is a little low anyway but not that low, he slowed to 135kph which is WAY off the pace and down shifted twice, so he was conscious during that part, but they are saying this was 3 seconds before he hit the wall. At this point the braking effectively stopped and in 3 seconds the car only slowed 30kph(this would be turning right having had the brakes on before so the car was slowing down and going onto grass/gravel) and hit the wall at 105kph. In that time there were no down shifts, no large breaking and no attempts to steer away from the wall.

So while Mclaren are saying he was conscious till the impact, the data is suggesting that there was a loss of driver input 3 seconds before the impact. The two down shifts and slowing 75kph suggests that maybe Alonso was in control but felt something was wrong(with the car or himself), it could be rather than Alonso losing consciousness that the car lost complete control, though for brakes, steering, everything to go seems extremely unlikely. Mclaren say the car had no problems and Alonso was conscious till impact, but if this report is true about the data, one of those things is effectively a lie.

It's that the story keeps changing from Mclaren but the more people look in to it the more it seems to match something else. How exactly is it that doctors in the first what is it, about 8-9 days failed to tell Alonso to not drive again within 21 days... but Alonso and Mclaren were saying he was almost certain to be at Australia up till was it yesterday, or Monday? Who was saying "concussions are fine, 3 weeks is no problem" but a week later was saying oh hell no to that idea? He will have been seen and advised during his first visit with doctors how long he should take off, and been told this 21 days thing but somehow he left hospital after 3 days and everyone was under the impression he was going to be cleared for Australia?
 
To stoke the fire a little there has been a report from Sky Italia that Alonso felt a large shock at the base of his spine prior to going off, according to his entourage.

Which might suggest discharge from the MGU-K or similar?
 
There are a hell of a lot of rumours, which I think is more an indicator that 99% of the worlds population believes Mclaren aren't remotely trustworthy. Which from their constant completely contradictory comments since the crash shouldn't be surprising. However the seemingly accepted story is ALonso has suffered at least some memory loss, of the accident and it's fairly normal to not remember the accident or the short term memory leading up to it, the reports he believed he was a Ferrari driver still were a little more worrying.

But then, isn't it basically Mclaren saying he can't remember and Mclaren that came up with the cracker "we don't want to ask him what happened"... like serious, wtf. Oh, a driver was seriously hurt.... lets not ask the driver about it even if the chances he remembers something crucial that improves the safety of the car is slim. It's almost completely absurd some of the stuff Mclaren is coming out with, that is largely why lots of people suspect something else happened... then you get the theories.

If Mclaren said, we haven't gathered all data but we read a 30g hit, Alonso was unconscious, has been taken to hospital and it's likely he has a concussion... that is fine. But they went with the "nothing to see here, he's completely fine, NO concussion, just normal checks at the hospital. Normal checks progressed to staying the night and a concussion(not sure in which order) which progressed to staying two, then three nights, then coming out and ALonso/Mclaren saying he'd almost certainly be there in Australia to insane statements about not asking Alonso about the accident.


Personally I figured giving Magnussen the time they gave him on the day they did was a huge sign they expected Alonso not to make Australia. I mean, at that stage the car may have missed the entire Sunday running and Button. They were desperate to get him laps and even prioritised that ahead of getting Button more laps... there was a reason.
 
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