Five years since Bahrain ’20: Tech that saved Grosjean’s life
Romain Grosjean’s fiery crash at the Bahrain Grand Prix five years ago remains one of the most shocking in Formula 1’s history.
It created one of the most memorable images of modern F1, with the then-Haas driver emerging from the flames after 27 seconds trapped inside the car. Remarkably, given the severity of the crash, the Frenchman suffered burns on his hands, but no other injuries.
Grosjean’s survival seemed to defy logic. He had crashed heavily, at high speed, and his car had split in two. His car had erupted into flames and he had spent an impossibly long time in the burning wreckage. It was a crash and a survival that shined a light on the F1 safety innovations that have been saving lives for years.
The crash
On lap one, Grosjean tangled with Daniil Kvyat as the two drove away from the chicane that opens the Bahrain Sakhir circuit. Grosjean’s car was pitched to the right, head-first into the barriers. The car itself was torn in two: the front half went through the guardrail, into a mangled mesh of carbon fiber, while the back half was sent careening further along the barriers. The car immediately burst into flames.
The FIA’s investigation into the crash later determined that Grosjean hit the barrier at 192 kph (119 mph), at an estimated yaw of 22 degrees from the normal direction of travel. The resultant peak force was equivalent to 67 Gs. To put that into perspective, a driver experiences around 6 Gs when hitting a heavy breaking point from top speed.
Grosjean was able to get out of the car unaided. As he did so, F1’s medical car had already arrived on the scene, with Dr. Ian Roberts there to help pull Grosjean to safety. It was a scarcely believable visual moment, but the Frenchman’s survival, his emergence from the flames, was credit to multiple technological innovations pioneered by the FIA and F1 in recent decades.
As it turned out, Grosjean’s life was saved multiple times in a fraction of a second by numerous pieces of tech.
The carbon-fibre cocoon
The most obvious place to start was the survival cell. Also known as the monocoque, this has become one of the most vital bits of safety equipment in Formula 1 today. It has been commonplace since the early 1980s, having first been pioneered on John Barnard’s McLaren in 1981.
The crash tests that teams undergo ahead of the season focus on this part of the car, and today, the monocoque is the last line of defense between the driver and the track. It has likely saved more lives than it has been given credit for.
Before the emergence of the carbon-fiber monocoque, the cockpit around Grosjean’s car would have been mincemeat. In all likelihood, his legs and torso would have been the primary shock absorber in such a crash.
Built like a cocoon, the monocoque is made from woven carbon fiber and resin, designed to be unbreakable. Grosjean’s crash was the best example of that, staying intact in the nearly 67 G impact, even though the Haas VF-20 itself split in half. Grosjean had remained firmly within the safety cell, his body protected from major injuries.
HANS device
As Grosjean’s car wet through the motions of rapid deceleration associated with such impacts, another innovation kicked in.
The Head and Neck Support (HANS) device, worn around driver’s necks, might appear cumbersome when drivers first pull themselves out of the cockpit, but its role is essential. The HANS device essentially prevents rapid or uncontrolled movements of the head, preventing whiplash, or worse. In a crash involving those kinds of forces, the HANS device can prevent broken necks and skull fractures.
The HANS was not roundly embraced when introduced — infamously, Dale Earnhardt’s death at the 2001 Daytona 500 sped up its acceptance as an essential part of a race cockpit. With Grosjean’s legs and torso kept safe by the survival cell and his neck protected by the HANS device, another once-maligned bit of technology emerged in what might have been its finest hour.
Halo: skeptic to believer
Perhaps the most significant safety innovation of Formula 1’s recent history, the Halo cockpit device fundamentally changed the sport. Since its inception in 1950, F1 cars had featured open cockpits. The push for additional driver protection gained speed in 2009 when Henry Surtees was killed by a flying tire in a Formula 2 race, shortly before Felipe Massa suffered a life-threatening injury when a loose coil spring struck his head during practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The 7 kilogram titanium device was designed to withstand 12 tons of force. In the lead up to the halo’s introduction in 2018, the FIA stated you could drop one of London‘s famous red buses on top of it and it would not break. The tech split opinion. Grosjean was a fierce critic, saying “I don’t think it has a place in F1.”
On that day in Bahrain, the halo proved vital. In the pre-halo era, Grosjean’s head would have been exposed to the guardrail his car struck at 119 mph. Undoubtedly, this was one aspect of technology that saved his life. It was a seismic moment in Grosjean’s view of the device.
Posting a message from his hospital bed the next day, Grosjean wrote: “I wasn’t for the Halo some years ago, but I think it’s the greatest thing that we’ve brought to Formula 1, and without it I wouldn’t be able to speak with you today.”
Extraction
Underpinning the halo device is the extraction test. Before the season, all drivers must be able to unbuckle, clear the cockpit and get free from the car in 10 seconds. Grosjean’s real-life test proved to be some slower than that. As his car came to rest, he had a terrifying realization: he was trapped inside the car by his left boot. Surrounded by flames and disorientated, his foot would not come loose until he forced it out of his boot.
Given the circumstances, it’s perhaps unsurprising that it took him three attempts to climb out of the car, but the choreography of the extraction is drilled into drivers so much that it has become second nature. Grosjean endured 28 seconds, not 10, and still made it out alive.
Fire protection
Visually, the most shocking part of the crash was the massive fireball that erupted as the car tore through the barriers. That Grosjean walked away with only burns to his hands was considered a minor miracle. In decades previously, drivers suffered horrific fire-related injuries in crashes.
The temperature of the kind of blaze Grosjean sat in can range anywhere from 800 degrees Celsius to 1,000. The Haas driver was wearing an Alpinestars suit made of Nomex, a flame-resistant material used in racing overalls for decades.
A new suit design had been pioneered for the 2020 season, with a belief that the garment could prevent serious injuries from such extreme temperatures for around 18 seconds. Grosjean’s 27 seconds in the car far exceeded that benchmark. In 2021, the FIA pioneered new gloves, having identified that area as one of the few remaining weak spots that his crash had exposed. The governing body has continued making inroads in this area since.
Seconds matter: The medical car and extraction team
Formula 1 has a peculiar tradition, one that at first glance might seem out of place in a sport built on speed. At the start of every race, there’s a road car deliberately following behind the field: the F1 medical car. Driven by Alan van der Merwe, with Dr. Ian Roberts in the passenger seat, the car’s job is simple: get to any first-lap crash site as quickly as possible.
That quirk may have saved Grosjean’s life.
The moment his car disappeared in a burst of orange flame, the medical car accelerated. Within 11 seconds, Van der Merwe was parked by the wreckage. Roberts ran toward the inferno with a fire extinguisher, unaware if the driver inside was still alive. When Grosjean appeared, climbing from the fire, Roberts helped drag him away from the wreckage.
Around them, marshals doused the area with extinguishers, giving the scene a surreal, almost theatrical haze. There was no performance, though, just split-second action that saved a life.
Source: espn.com