Le Mans – McNish Crash

I think the Audi driver who said it was a racing error and effectively sh1t happens, no-one’s fault is probably in a better position to comment than anyone on here. It was his car that got wrecked, after all.
Gonna need a truck load of gaffer tape to put that car back together…

“The Ferrari closed the door, Allan had no chance whatsoever. He went off very quickly, but luckily managed to get out of the car unharmed,” said Audi motorsport head Wolfgang Ullrich.

from bbc

I’ve looked at that a good few times now, bit of a “racing incident” if you ask me. At first I was thinking what the hell was the Ferrari driver doing getting in the way of the faster car, then it looked like McNish just barrelled into him, almost fogetting to brake/steer from another angle.

Fact of the matter is though, the Audi is a damn sight quicker car, and was approaching at a rate of knots. McNish was probably in the Ferrari’s blind spot when the Ferrari driver checked his mirror, and before he could check again the Audi was there, on the apex of the corner too.

24 Hour racing is a great spectacle, and obviously a long standing tradition, but generally you see some much more horrific accidents because of the disparity in the machinery than you do in most other forms of (much more closely contested) motor racing. Reading stories of the old GrpC Jag’s and Merc’s of the 1980’s barreling down the old Mulsanne straight at 250mph, trying to dodge Porsche 911’s littered all over the place doing a mere 180mph, makes me wince quite frankly! 70mph is a hell of a difference if you’re doing 70 when another car is stationary. When you’re doing almost 4 times that already, the consequences don’t bear thinking about.

Anyway, like I said, racing incident. Both drivers walked away thankfully and will live to race another day. What’s shocking is the lack of effectiveness of the gravel trap (they work well for open wheeled cars like F1, but cars with enormous flat bottoms like LeMans cars just skid over the top), and the fact nobody stood behind the barrier got hurt! Until the car hit the barrier and came to a halt, looked for all the world like it was going to mince a whole load of marshalls and camera men!

first viewing it looks obvious that the ferrari should have got out of the way, which is undoubtedly true. from all angles though it doesn’t look like he’d have had any chance of getting past those porsches in front and staying on the track/avoiding them. 😕

reckon he got a bit carried away and should be blaming himself for an avoidable accident, tbf.

SBZ/Scardypants, have you ever raced anything?

I think you should have a few seasons at a top level motorsport before making armchair comments on drivers actions.LOL, we’re disqualified from even having an opinion ?
I’m just guessing, but maybe the minimum standard of motorsport we’d have to engage in to be valid is perhaps exactly the level you’ve competed at ?

If you watch the video the Ferrari did move to the apex, whilst the Audi was alongside, in fact it was past the Ferrari.

WHy wouldn’t the Ferrari move to the apex if he was thinking “no fecker’s going to try to pass here, it’d be stoopid”

Disagree ? Tell it to the driver of the other audi who thought better of overtaking at that point 😉

looks like a racing incident to me. mcnish takes the other audi and attempts to put the ferrari between them assuming the ferrari has seen them coming. unfortunately he hasn’t and that is the result. people on the service road should nip off and put their lottery number on, its clearly their lucky day.
and the matey running down the service road being chased by the wheel is genius.

Have to agree with Scaredypants. The Ferrari was on the racing line for the corner and Im sure was concentrating on the Audi behind him and not what was behind that Audi. As previously stated and what is stated in all drivers briefings for endurance races is its the responsibility of the faster car to make the pass safely and of the slower car to stay to the racing line. So, although unfortunate, in my eyes it was a racing incident.
Im just wondering how many have actually sat in a GT car and tried to see out of the mirrors…?

there is a waved blue flag. so he should have been looking for faster cars passing him.

do really think the driver will be looking away from the apex to where the blue flag was being waved?

My point did come across all wrong.

What I meant was when you are racing, the decisions you make to overtake or not are made in a split second.

Nobody but Alan McNish knows if it was a correct move at the time or not. To me it looked perfectly possible and as others have pointed out a racing accident.

Heart-stopping incident, though. I’ve watched quite a few times now, and the thing that amazes me is how the car pauses on the top of the tyre wall, seems to pirouette, then drop back down onto the gravel. As above, the gravel trap didn’t do very much, the car just skims across it like a teatray. As the Audi boss said, “To see that the cars are strong is good but that’s not the way we like to demonstrate it”. A great demonstration of understatement, I think.

As previously stated and what is stated in all drivers briefings for endurance races is its the responsibility of the faster car to make the pass safely and of the slower car to stay to the racing line.

Just like sking or any sport the crazy f….er coming up the rear or trying to overtake needs to take responsibility for his actions, needs to count his blessings he’s alive