Path: gdt!bspahh
    From: bspahh@gdr.bath.ac.uk (Andrew Henry)
    Message-ID: <1992Mar19.141821.6485@gdr.bath.ac.uk>
    Organization: School of Biological Sciences, University of Bath, UK
    References: <mferrare.700964481@adelphi>
    Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1992 14:18:21 GMT
    
    In article <mferrare.700964481@adelphi>mferrare@physics.adelaide.edu.au (Mark Ferraretto) writes:
    >Last night i was watching a video called "Turbo Time". It was generally boring
    >but it did show Gilles Villeneuve's crash.  The problem was that the camera
    >shot was not of Villeneuve but of the driver in front of him so we didn't see
    >much until the ferrari rolled across the track and Villeneuve was thrown clear
    >of the car.  What caused this crash?  How did Villeneuve manage to get thrown
    >out of the car?  The video didn't say much.  It concentrated on his funeral
    >more.
    
    Quoting without permission from "Villeneuve" by Gerald Donaldson, p316:
    
    	With less than fifteen minutes to go Gilles was still out on the
    circuit using his last set of qualifying tyres. He had already established
    the fastest time but continued to circulate on the used tyres, trying to
    improve.  As Gilles came by the start/finish line Mauro Foghieri showed
    him the "IN" signal on the pit board.
    
    	"I called him into the pits because his tyres were finished.  He
    had already done three fast laps on them before and was close to the best
    time of Pironi and there was nothing more he could do.  Gilles was coming
    in to the pits on the lap on which he had his crash.  But even when the
    car was coming to the pits it was traveling at over 200 kmh.  That was Gilles."
    
    	Gilles came to the brow of the hill and into the left-hand kink
    before the Terlamenbocht corner at a speed estimated later to be 225 kmh,
    about 140 mph, and saw the March in front of him.  Competing in his 100th
    Grand Prix,  Jochen Mass was a careful and considerate driver and was watching
    for following cars.  He was in fifth gear but cooling his tyres and moving
    much slower than the oncoming Ferrari.  "I saw Gilles in my mirrors and 
    expected him to pass on the left.  I moved right and couldn't believe it
    when I saw him virtually on top of me.  He clipped my right tyre and 
    bounced off the front tyre and was launched into the air."
    
    	The accident was of aircraft proportions and,  unlike when a 
    car skids and then hits a solid object,  there was no loss of speed,
    no deceleration before impact.  The Ferrari just kept flying and was 
    airborne for over 100 metres before it slammed down nose first into the
    earth,  buckling the front of the car in on the driver.  But the energy
    was scarcely dissipated and the accident went on and on.
    
    	The car catapulted high into the air again and began a series 
    of horrific cartwheels,  at one point touching down on an earth bank
    some distance behind the guard rails on the right side of the entry to
    Terlamenbocht.  On its return to the circuit the uncontrolled red projectile
    very nearly landed on the following March.  Mass was just able to swerve
    onto the grass to avoid being crushed.
    
    	The Ferrari chassis began to disintegrate with pieces flying in
    all directions.  The driver,  the seat and the steering wheel became
    detached and were hurled nearly fifty metres through the air to the left 
    side of Terlamenbocht and ploughed through two layers of catch-fencing.
    Gilles's helmet flew off and rolled to rest some distance away from his body.
    
    	A doctor was on the scene in seconds and began to try to
    revive Gilles with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and heart massage.
    ...  The crash occurred at 1.52 pm on May 8, 1982, eleven minutes later
    he was taken to hospital by helicopter.  He never regained consciousness 
    and died at 9.12 pm.
    
    
    After all of that morbid stuff,  here's my favourite Villeneuve story,
    quoted without permission from Nigel Roebuck's "Grand Prix Greats", p208:
    
    	During practice at Dijon in 1981,  Gilles crashed at an undulating,
    flat-in-fourth right hander, with no run-off worth mentioning.  He said, 
    "The car is really bad through there - and adventure every time.  Go and 
    have a look this afternoon and you'll see what I mean." I did.  I watched 
    the Cosworth-engined Williams and Brabhams droning through on their rails,  
    and waited.
    
    	At its clipping point, at the top of a rise,  the Ferrari was 
    already sideways, its driver winding on opposite lock.  As it came past me,
    plunging downhill now, the tail stayed out of line, further and further, and 
    still Gilles had his foot hard down.  As he reached the bottom of the dip, 
    I knew the position was hopeless,  for now it was virtually broadside,  full 
    lock on, Villeneuve's head pointing up the road, out of the side of the cockpit.
    
    Somehow, though, the Ferrari did not spin, finally snapping back into
    line as it grazed the catch fencing, then rocketing away up the hill.
    For more than a hundred yards, I swear it, the car was sideways at 130 mph.
    "That's genius," said David Hobbs, watching with me. "Are you seriously
    telling me he's won two Grand Prix in that?"
    
    
    			Andrew  Henry
    Sempre  Gilles					bspahh@gdr.bath.ac.uk