Two days after the fatal accident of Anthoine Hubert in Spa, yet more crash videos appear online slowly revealing what really happened: race fans never really saw how exactly the fatal accident came to pass.
Certainly, TJ13 has never been shy to say it’s piece after tragic accidents, the last significant moment being the 2014 Jules Bianchi crash in Japan. Perhaps out of misplaced respect, many professional news outlets haven’t embedded the many minutes of footage doing the rounds on social media from Saturdays’ terrible crash. I will say this at the beginning of my piece that we will embed clips detailing how the accident happened toward the end of this page, so if you are offended by this, I implore you to close the browser now.
I believe that racing fans should know how the crash involving Hubert and Cerrea occurred, the official TV feed only catching a fleeting glimpse of the collision that ended the 22-year-old’s life in the most tragic of circumstances. A terrible loss, and one that must not be in vain.
On a more positive note, the other driver involved, Juan Manuel Correa appears to be stable with significant breaks to his legs and small fractures to his spine, but it is expected that he should recover, physically at least. Small mercies.
The FIA has also started its accident analysis, TJ13 hopes and prays that it will be more involved and less bias that the debacle that surrounded the Bianchi incident where Whiting and co were clearly culpable.
Saturday was sickening disbelief, Sunday could perhaps be part of the mourning process for fans of racing, but today should be the day that the search for answers begins. Answers to the question of just how such a deadly collision between Anthoine Hubert and Juan Manuel Correa happened.
Hubert’s Dallara was hit on the left midship by Correa. While Hubert’s Dallara practically came to a standstill after the first impact into the tyre stack, Correa was, according to first estimates, doing around 250 and 270 km/h when he hit his competitor.
What isn’t clear on the TV pictures was that another car, this time Giuliano Alesi, gets into trouble in Eau Rouge because of a puncture triggering a chain reaction.
“We don’t know what caused the puncture. It’s possible that debris was the fault of someone else,” claims former F1 drive and father of Giuliano, Jean Alesi. Apparently, there was some contact between Mick Schumacher and Nicholas Latifi in the La Source hairpin, with Latifi driving the whole lap back to the pits with the flat tyre, according to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.
After the puncture on the left side, Alesi crests the hill above Eau Rouge, spins and spills pieces of carbon fibre across the track. We then see the rear wing of Alesi’s car fly across the road. Ralph Boschung is the first driver to reach the scene of the accident (the creator of the youtube video is aware that they mistook Ralph for Dorian Boccolacci). The Swiss driver moves to the right into the tamac run-off, taking his foot off the pedal to slow down.
Meanwhile Hubert has yet to reach the top of the crest and is completely unaware of the incident in time, eventually seeing the slower Boschung, and pulls to the right but still makes minor contact on the front wing, completely unloading the front axle. Hubert hits tyre wall hard and rebounds into the racing line exit of the crest. At that moment, Correa appears on this line at full throttle, noticing too late to do anything apart from hit the pink chassis of Hubert.
Correa impact into Hubert is at the exact height of the seat tearing open on the left side, surely the point of which must have killed the young Frenchman, his car pushed a further 50 metres downrange, again hitting a tyre wall. This second impact separates the rear part of Hubert’s car, throwing it into the middle of the track. Correa slides upside down another 30 meters. The entire front section is torn off, alarmingly his legs protrude from the safety cell.
One has to wonder if the continued reprofiling of the Eau Rouge / Raidillion complex over the years has been a big mistake as now, the cars more or less straight line the complex without lifting at all. Certainly, Sky Sports TV European pundit Marc Surer agrees:
“You’re coming over the crest at full throttle and you’re much too late to recognise the danger. Spa has to decide. Either they want a straight line. Then you don’t need the top. It would be better to tighten the first turn. Then Eau Rouge would be a proper curve again, and the cars would arrive slower at the crest.”
According to Auto Motor und Sport, ex Champion Jacques Villeneuve and Jean Alesi also criticise the supposedly ‘safer’ asphalt run-off zones as opposed to the original grass and gravel traps of yesteryear. The FIA has been mandating full tarmac run-off over the years across all the ‘classic circuits’ as it is believed that should a car come off the circuit, it’s more likely to keep control and less likely to roll over.
Many older drivers disagree with this policy claiming that if you have that safe run-off and merely only dodge an incident by moving into the tarmac run-off zone, you are almost always going to keep your foot flat to the floor, which is exactly what Hubert and Correa did.
“The drivers lose the feeling for risk. Asphalt in the crash areas, tyre stacks, Tecpro, Halo. The perfect safety net.” says Alesi
“They do the lap 30 times in the simulator and return to the track without damage. They feel invulnerable.”
Maybe a rethink into how circuits have been altered should be considered? TJ13 welcomes your thoughts in the comments below.
good points and good explanation, I knew Alesi spinning was the cause but didn’t know he had a flat tire causing it.That wall that Hubert first hit stopped his car and spit it out sideways, that was a contributing cause.
VERY GOOD EXPLANATION , YOU ANSWER EVERY DOUBT I HAD , THANKS
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Totally agree. Sir jackie stewart has warned more to come as drivers feel safe with track runoffs as they are and cars feel safer
They are not. Simulators are one thing, PRETEND racing. Speed kills ! Experience in real cars matter most ! No reason for Correa to be so far off track.
Remember Mark that at that speed (250km/hr ) when he came over the rise the left side had 2 or 3 cars going slow so he veered right just as Huberts car got stopped and spit out in his path , split second to react.
Was typing a long comment
Deleted it
Can’t form an objective opinion – only that family and friends lost a loved one.
Freak carambole accident?
Gravel traps? Grass?
Tightening? More challenge? Less danger? Challenging enough?
At the end just questions remain
With bianchi, I am more certain of all the mistakes made, now I’m not
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A good, detailed explanation of the sequence of events that led to the Hubert / Correa crash. It was only a matter of time until something like this happened at Spa, and I don’t mean the death of a driver. It’s now flat out from La Source through Eau Rouge / Raidillon onto Kemmel. The big problem being that because of the steepness of the incline, the entrance onto Kemmel is essentially blind. if anything occurs at the start of Kemmel there is almost no time to react, and with the FIA having mandated tarmac run-offs, drivers keep their foot to the floor and use the run-off. And this type of thing is going to happen more often in the future with more tracks getting tarmac run-offs and in 2021 the use of ground effects.
I think a fundamental piece of the puzzle which you have missed is why Correa was so far off line. You incorrectly state that Hubert was on the racing line. Hubert had NOT rebounded back onto the racing line. He was not even on the track, but strewn in the run off area. By the time Correa crests Radillon, the slow cars are well down the road so I believe it is unlikely that he has chosen to dive so far off track so erratically.
After my own analysis of the videos, I am of the opinion that Correa appears to have been out of control and heading for a similar crash to Hubert. His line through the run off area is not one I believe could be corrected to rejoin the track. If Hubert was not there, I am convinced Correa would have hit the barriers anyway. If you slow the video closely, I also believe Correa had damage to his car before he makes contact with Hubert. Note the smoke from Correa’s car all through camera shot before his impact. This is not tyre smoke as his front left is turning freely which is the unloaded tyre (most likely to lock) for the left hand turn he would have been inputting. Correa’s car seems to be dragging it’s right hand side on the ground suggesting either a complete tyre failure, or debris is stuck underneath his car and I cannot consecutively tell if his front wing is still intact but it does appear to be missing or seriously damaged from the angles I have seen. It could even be his own front wing under his own car. There is no video footage that I have seen to confirm the following; but I believe Correa may have hit a major piece of debris from Alesi’s car coming through Radillon before he appears in any camera shot we’ve seen giving him a substantial loss of control, thus explaining him being so far offline seemingly heading for the barriers. One camera angle clearly shows a major piece of debris was left on the racing line from Alesi’s car over the crest of Radillon. Maybe Correa hit this?
I’m not sure if Correa has any damage to his car. It looks to me as if he moves on to the tarmac to avoid hitting the curbs without realizing Hubert has gone into the tyre barrier. If you watch the overhead it clearly appears he is positioning his car to return to the track after the curbs end.
This still is pretty convincing. You can see something is wrong on the right hand side of Correas car and he looks to be heading for the barrier with little or no control. He is still angled away from the track at this point (look at his left hand wheels in relation to tracks white line)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bLsA5GvWXyzmeNkWXPHlGLMrrOen1NQa/view?usp=drivesdk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bLsA5GvWXyzmeNkWXPHlGLMrrOen1NQa/view?usp=drivesdk
If you see this still you can see the damage Correa appears to have and also that even at this point he is still angled away from the track based on his left hand wheels in relation to the white line of the track boundary.
There is damage in the form of a right rear blow out, maybe from hitting debris ,that overhead is an estimate not factual, I saw a new piece of video clearly showing Correa’s right rear down so his brakes wouldn’t operate properly and he was out of control also. That video also showed that Hubert clipped Boshungs rear wing and/or debris on the track making him lose control.The Alesi thing has yet to be explained, his dad says he had a tire down and lost it but I saw another article saying he just lost control.Still am very sad a week later and watching the 2 races this weekend will be hard.
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The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) launched an investigation into the accident. Findings of the accident investigation were presented to the World Motor Sport Council, together with recommended actions in December 2019. The FIA finished this investigation in February 2020.
FIA stated that Hubert’s cause of death was “non-survivable trauma”. FIA gathers extensive medical data on drivers during the course of the race, however, this data is not released to the public due to privacy and ethical reasons. F2 cars are built to the same safety standard as F1 cars; following the accident, Racing Point F1 Team technical boss Andy Green commented: “The energy involved was absolutely huge, and the current chassis design, whether F2 or F1, there’s no way a current chassis can survive that sort of impact.”
In May 2020, the FIA Safety Department issued the following safety recommendations which will be implemented in future generations of single seat cars (including F1, F2, F3, F4 and Formula E cars):
Debris Containment – using “tethering” in order to prevent large pieces from falling off the car (used currently for keeping wheels attached to the chassis in case of an accident), the use of “tethers” may now be expanded to front and rear wings as well as other large components on the car. Correa struck pieces from Alesi’s car (following Alesi’s crash) causing Correa’s car to become uncontrollable and strike Hubert’s already disabled car. IndyCar began fielding “tethers” for non-wheel components in 2016.
Increasing the frontal and side strength of the cockpit (also known as the “safety cell”).
Improving the car-to-car compatibility during a crash – the narrow nose section of Formula 2 cars can penetrate the side protection of another car. The current side protection consisting of two Side Impact Protection Structures (SIPS) and Side Anti Intrusion Panel will be redesigned. The lack of compatibility in car-to-car collisions was also noticed in the 2017 Billy Monger crash where a piece of the car crash protection structure (designed to protect the driver when colliding with a wall) can cause unnecessarily serious injuries if struck by another car. Correa impacted Hubert at a speed of 218 km/h, experienced 65G and suffered much more serious injuries than Robert Kubica did in his 2007 crash (acute respiratory distress syndrome, broken legs, spinal injury vs. Kubica’s sprained ankle). Kubica struck the wall at 230 km/h and experienced 75G (both higher than Correa).
Front wing redesign – increase the robustness of the front wing by introducing “controlled failure” points which should reduce the chance that the entire front wing is destroyed in case of minor contact with another car, as this caused Hubert’s car to crash into the barriers and become immobilised; additionally, the loss of the entire front wing also caused Correa to lose control of his car which ultimately resulted in the fatal car-to-car crash between them.
Headrest redesign (also known as cockpit surround padding)- ensuring that all or at least part of the headrest remains in place in case of a heavy crash ] The same problem was already observed during Magnussen’s 2016 crash.
Quicker Accident Notification System – for example using the existing rain light to flash in different colours (e.g. yellow to indicate yellow flag conditions on the track or red (to indicate that the race has been stopped). Possible introduction of car to car communication, i.e. notifications of stationary car(s) on the track.
Tyre Pressure Monitoring System Deployment – crash sequence began with Alesi losing control due to a tyre puncture which he was unaware of before he lost control.
In October 2020, it was announced that the Raidillon corner would be modified by expanding the run-off area and reintroducing gravel traps. Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) launched an investigation into the accident. Findings of the accident investigation were presented to the World Motor Sport Council, together with recommended actions in December 2019. The FIA finished this investigation in February 2020.