2020 Formula 1 thread

[ZCanadian]

Originally Posted by Hotrodz

A lot of credit has to be given to Romain for not panicking and getting out of the car so fast. You have about 10 seconds before all your safety gear fails.

Definitely. One could argue that he had a fair bit of motivation here. But he must have been severely shaken by the crash - it takes a moment to get your bearings after a high G deceleration like that. There must have been very little visibility other than flames, his tear-offs would be melting onto the visor making it even worse. Who knows what debris might have been in his way, or what may have been melting and preventing proper operation (harness, steering wheel, headrest, etc). Perhaps he could hear yelling from the medical team, but I doubt it (earplugs meant to protect from an F1 engine behind his head), so he wouldn't even be certain which way was safest to run. Having to traverse 30 feet of burning fuel slick would not have added to the survivability of this crash!

Take a stopwatch to the event. I think Niki Lauda was looking down on him yesterday, because he used up every one of those 10 seconds (and then some).