| Who to thank first? I’ll start with Jean Todt and the FIA (Peter Wright and Andy Mellor in particular, also GPDA chairman Alex Wurz) for seeing through the halo project that undoubtedly saved Romain Grosjean in his huge Bahrain crash on Sunday. Dr Ian Roberts and medical car driver Alan van der Merwe deserve medals for their bravery, rushing towards the fire and helping Grosjean with his fiery exit. We must thank the racewear, helmet and HANS device manufacturers for creating such resilient materials, and all the people who design and create the onboard safety systems – including the carbonfibre chassis, Kevlar bag fuel tanks, etc. Also, we owe a huge amount of gratitude to the legendary racing safety campaigners, such as Sir Jackie Stewart, Professor Sid Watkins (empowered by Max Mosley) and Charlie Whiting, for all standing firm in what they believed in. Yes, you can say Romain’s escape was a ‘miracle’ but an awful lot of science went into making it happen.
Charles Bradley, Global Editor in Chief
Motorsport.com |
