what do you all think of the failure of the monocoque. Moderator, don't shoot me, but I was so intrigued by this shot on page 9 of the Monterey thread, that I thought I'd show the F1 hounds here. Is this at all what you would expect a carbon fiber monocoque faioure to look like? This crash allegedly occurred on a low speed parade lap of Ferrari F1 cars at Laguna Seca yesterday.
I would think it's a replica and not built to F1 specs. That can not be a true F1 car, no way, no how.
Is the driver ok? Otherwise posting the pic is of ill taste. Cars can be replaced, life can't. Please tell me you put more thought into than thinking, oh neat pic, gotta hear a response. No offense to you or your pic, but would you like to see a pic of some Ferrari driver two seconds after major injury? RocketBoy PS: I agree with the previous post, looks very much like a F399 or 2000.
I would have said a nice fotoshop.... real crash, hmmmmmm, amazing, and lucky driver, makes me thinking about Zanardi's crash.
I have read (in the Monterey thread) as well as hearing it from the lips of a buddy that was there, that the driver walked away. Rest assured that I would not have started this thread if I had heard that there had been a gruesome ending or serious injury. Nor did I think this was merely a 'neat pic.' As a matter of racing/Ferrari technology, I am stunned that a modern F1 monocoque would have broken this way and am interested in the opinions of the knowledgeable folks in this section.
1999 F1 car at the Historics at Laguna Seca, Turn 6. The driver walked away. here are the "before" pictures... http://www.vintageracingnews.com/vintageracingig/gallery/ferrarisat2004historics/DSCF0484.jpg http://www.vintageracingnews.com/vintageracingig/gallery/ferrarisat2004historics/DSCF0483.jpg
It is a F399. The owner is Dutch importer Frits Kroymans. He raced the same car during the Spa Ferrari Days. Very weird accident I must say.
Thanks for the clarification Bryan. Fchat should be about Ferrari fans helping each other and as I stated, my comments were trying to know more about this strange pic. It disgusts me that in the political section of Fchat, members happily post links to where you can find images of people beheaded by Iraqis or Lambo fans going into every Fchat section to compare tenths of a second in some magazine or from some "guy they know" on why their car is better. These cars should be about admiration for great work, performance, and historical connections... Going back to your intended question and based on everything I just said, have no clue how this might have happened. Was the factory sponsored F1 team there? Do not recall the name at the moment, but everyone who has made the trip to the factory has seen this shop/team located across the street and it was briefly mentioned in the last issue of CAR, featuring a Enzo/SLR/CGT comparison and feature on the last purchase of an F1 car: which happened to be a title clinching ride. Shocked that since it takes an army of mechanics to keep the new ones running, that the body could run through so much stress that a clean break eventually happening did not go unnoticed. RocketBoy
I have never seen a clean break like that before either. I can't believe the driver walked away. Are there any more details or pictures of the accident? I'm sure Maranello will be very interested in this chassis.............
I'm not an expert on carbon fiber monocoques, but I would say there is about a zero percent chance that this could happen to a real Ferrari F1 car, unless someone grafted on a fiberglass nose. No way. It must have been a "display" chassis, or some other explanation.
It wasn 't on the displpay stand when THIS happened..but the same thought crossed my mind..given the owner though ..highly unlikely. It IS broken like glass would fail, good point there. I think there is an assembly joint at this bulkhead, however...don't they split to this point to adjust shocks and suspension??? Speedy's confused....
I looked again, never mind...MUCh further back that front nose/cockpit splice..but you can see a mounting flange of some sort in the photo as if this is an assembly joint in the car.....
After a few minutes of research: It seems that Kroyman's F399 is chassis #193, which happens to be the same car that Michael Schumacher crashed into the barriers at the British Grand Prix in 1999, breaking his leg. According to Autosport, "There is concern over the monocoque breaking at just 66.5 MPH" (his impact speed with the tire wall). So - we know that car had a cracked monocoque. Who repaired it, was it properly repaired, did Ferrari give the car their OK to compete again?
wow... car breaking in the same spot? I would imagine it would be retired and not resold. I'm sure, as well as he is - walking away from the incident - he's probably got a bit of a chuckle, knowing the history of the car and how it happened to him too. The F1 car that was sold in CAR/5th Gear show was a 2001/2 model, cannot remember which.
No way this was a true F1 car to FIA regulations. They just don't break like this. The speed given is close to the FIA crash tests, you wouldn't get their approval if something like this would ever happen. *IF* this is a real car and not a display car as some mentioned, then it had issues, like a cracked monocoque. F1 cars don't brake like this at these speeds, not even at much higher speeds.
Looked further into the Autosport reports from 1999 races, and they indicate that chassis #193 was used by the Ferrari team at races later in the year, after the British GP crash. So I guess the factory repaired it, if the chassis number information is correct. But it NEVER, EVER should have broken like Kroyman's car did. Something funny there.
Great detective work! I hope the factory fixed it after Silverstone in a way that such a break could not have happened. If they didn't, which is possible, after all once a F1 car has been approved by FIA, there are no more further crash tests, then they would have seriously gambled with the drivers' lifes. Hard to imagine. So I'm sticking to my speculation: Shoddy repair work after it ended its official racing career at the S/F.
Found this http://www.barchetta.cc/All.Ferraris/images/0400/img-0124-1.jpg, dont know what year, or for sure that its a Ferrari, but it came from a Ferrari site. As you can see, there is no bulkhead or mating joint. My guess is that somehow Kroymans is a repaired tub that the factory never intended to race again. The break is too clean to be a one piece lay-up although there might be a Titanium bulkhead bonded into the carbon fiber tub and thats where it failed. I would like to know much more about just what happened. Is it possible the structure failed a caused the crash? I would like to see a video of the incident before making any calls.
More pictures and discussion here: http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showpost.php?p=134358107&postcount=210 As I said there, I always thought Carbon fibre had a very short life ... and the cars should be destroyed after there competitive days ... or made undrivable for musuems. This was a very low speed accident! Pete
It's far too clean a break for there not to have been a joint there. When carbon fiber fails there is always some zig-zag edges, since some of the fibers will be at 45 degrees to either vertical or horizontal. I think the entire nose may have been replaced after the Schumacher crash. They simply cut the entire nose off and grafted (or fastened?) on a new one. If this was done while the team was still using it that might have made the car illegal. At any rate, they should have declared it "not to be driven" after its retirement from active use.
I think that's the most likely explanation. This is so bad that I think we really need an official statement from Ferrari or the owner of the car to clarify exactly what went wrong. If I was an owner of another Ferrari Clienti F1 car, this is the type of thing that would make me very very nervous! Does anyone here have some contacts who have worked on this car, or with any Ferrari personnel in Italy? If you do, I suggest you ask them what happened (via phone, email or whatever). I'm sure everyone here would like to know!
In these photos is almost looks like some sort of adhesive was used to bond the nose to the remainder of the chassis. Look at the thin white line around the circumference of the joining rims. It appears that nothing actually broke, other than this joining point; something like this would have to be incredibly dangerous!
