Best F1 Crashes!

sparkthatbled

Just wondering what everyone thinks is the best f1 crash of all time. I've made a shortlist of what i believe to be the best (by which i mean worst)
I might pick on coulthard a bit but he deserves it!

Spa 98, legendary start crash. (coulthards fault)
Coulthard hitting a wall on his way into the pits at 60mph, cant remember year or venue.
Coulthard spinning his car on the formation lap from poll.
Spa 99, villeneuve and zonta make a pact... They both take eau rouge flat out and see who gets the best crash out of it. I think villeneuve won!
Heidfeld and Sato in 2002 when heidfeld loses control, slides straight through a corner and takes sato out of it.
Pizzonia, in a link posted in the belgian gp 2004 thread flipping a road car while giving brundle a tour of a track.

There's loads more to choose from too. What do people think?

aphex™

Martin Brundle 1996 adelaide at the start of the race. Jumped out and ran to the pits for the restart in the T-car.

Dr. Dre

Gilles Villeneuve (fatal) in '82
Lauda in '76

EDIT: Actually maybe they don't fit under the category "Best" crashes, but they're the two most horrific I can remember at the moment.

sparkthatbled

I was actually gonna include lauda's but couldnt remember what year it was or any of that. Have it on a dvd of f1's progression through the 70's. Also one there where 2 drivers collided, ones car went on fire and his distraught opponent jumped out of his owncar and ran over to try save him but it was too late. One of the most powerful images in f1 history. Who the hell was it...

ro_chez

One of the best has to be Christian Fittipaldi flipping his car at the end of the 1993 Italian Grand Prix at Monza right on the finish line, landing on his wheels and continued on down the track.

BrianD3

Also one there where 2 drivers collided, ones car went on fire and his distraught opponent jumped out of his owncar and ran over to try save him but it was too late. One of the most powerful images in f1 history. Who the hell was it

The driver that burned to death was Roger Williamson and the driver that tried to save him was David Purley. I believe Purley was later awarded the George Cross for his bravery. The crash happened at Zandvoort (Dutch GP) in the early seventies.

The thread title "Best F1 Crashes!" is inappropriate for discussion of horrific fatal crashes such as this. The "best" crashes are the ones where cars are totalled but the drivers walk away unharmed. Eg the big pileup at the start of the Austrian GP in 1987.

BrianD3

fletch

Has got to be Spa in the rain in 1998. Nearly 20 cars crashed into each other after they went around the first bend. Watch the vid (681 KB).....oh & nobody died

Zulu

For me it has to be 1995 Silverstone. It wasn't spectacular but...
Hill finally had enough of Schumacher, and got some pay back.

smoke.me.a.kipper

i agree Spa '98 was the best crash (good for jordan too ) but i dont think any fatal or serious injury crash can be regarded or included as 'best'. thats just wrong imho.

Zulu

...or the time Coulthard (the spanner) spun off leading the parade laps. Man - I almost wet myself that time ...and no one got hurt

SeamusAFA

fletch wrote:

Has got to be Spa in the rain in 1998. Nearly 20 cars crashed into each other after they went around the first bend. Watch the vid (681 KB).....oh & nobody died

You get my backing has to be best

sparkthatbled

BrianD3 wrote:

The thread title "Best F1 Crashes!" is inappropriate for discussion of horrific fatal crashes such as this. The "best" crashes are the ones where cars are totalled but the drivers walk away unharmed. Eg the big pileup at the start of the Austrian GP in 1987.

BrianD3

Sorry, didnt mean that as a good crash, just a powerful image. Should have clarified it more. I reckon the villeneuve v zonta pact wins it though and on closer inspection, zonta won the bet! Afterwards villeneuve said " Well, it wasn't as hard as my crash here last year but i rolled it... which was a bonus!" Now thats funny, just slightly funnier than ol' square-jaw spinning on the formation lap!

BrianD3

Sorry, didnt mean that as a good crash, just a powerful image. Should have clarified it more

You're OK, I think it was reasonably clear that you didn't regard the Williamson incident as a "good" crash.

BrianD3

Devilman

Yep Spa 98 would be at the top of my list too,

We've forgotten another DC classic from the same race though.... remember him and Schumacher in the rain, Coulthard slowed down and MS ran right into the back of him followed by MS charging down the pitlane to throttle DC.

or Hockenheim from a couple of years ago.. one of the Prosts going airborne at the start cant remember how many more cars were involved


As a foot note to the Purley accident...he was involved in the highest g crash ever himself in '77...a horrific one where his car went from 100 + mph to 0 in less than 70cm I think it was about 180gs on impact

djeclips

Its' got to be spa for me aswell in 98',as already said great for jordan.Funniest thing I remember about was that after all the carnage died down one of the jordans just pulls out from the grass and gingerly picks his way through all the cars.

Brundel in 96' aswell.

RoadRunner

some dude in the 50's flipped his car into the harbour in monaco. I can't remember who it was. He lived. I think he was killed 2 weeks later though.

ando

Fisicella in spa '98, his Benetton turned into a torpedo after he went straight up the back of a Minardi, missing the pit wall (head on collision) by inches, then his car going on fire. I've still the whole race on Vhs!!

aphex™

I think Barichello's Imola '94 crash (jesus, what a terrible weekend ) was pretty horrific. You can download it here (2 or so megs). So could have easily been 3 that weekend.

I'll always remember Alex Wurz's Canada 1999 crash, you can see it here its 536k.

Somebody mentioned the Spa '98 Jordan triumph. It's here, 5 megs. You can even see the jordan pull out from the back there

EDIT: Although not a crash, Jos Verstappen's pitlane fire is worth a gander. here, 719k. (he was fine and went on to race in many a GP, incase somebody reads this and doesn't know too much about f1)

smoke.me.a.kipper

christ aphex™, i had forgotten about Barichello's crash till i saw it now. one lucky man.

Spalk0

I gotta say Spa 98 myself!......what mayhem!
Litterally had me jumping out of my seat spilling half my beer!

zotteken

Anyone know good sites with F1-crash clips/movies??

By the way, hi all, hope to have a good time on the boards.

Cheers
Zotteken

Darwin

Coulthard hitting a wall on his way into the pits at 60mph, cant remember year or venue.

I think it was Adelaide 1995, when he was team mate to Damon Hill. I remember watching the race on Eurosport with John Watson and Ben Edwards commentating. Watson nearly had a fit when Coulthard hit the pit wall - their commentry was extremely funny!

aidan_dunne

Yeah, it was Adelaide '95 where old Kryten-head (fans of 'Red Dwarf' will get the reference. ) put it into the wall coming into the pits. If you thought the Eurosport commentary was funny, what about the BBC one? Murray Walker and Jonathon Palmer had 1980 World Champion Alan Jones sitting alongside them as a guest commentator. In typically blunt Aussie fashion (and for those of you who know about Alan Jones, you'll know how blunt he could be. He was a straight-talking, no-bullsh!t operator), Jones started laying into Coulthard, calling him a "bloody idiot", etc. Poor old Murray was there trying to defend him, saying how it was a very tight entrance to the pits, how F1 cars have very little steering lock, etc. but Jones was having none of it, pointing out, quite rightly, how it was all the other drivers had no problem driving into the pits safely.

Actually, the commentary that race was classic, due mainly to Jones being in the box. Some of the stuff he came out with was classic. Though, it was no wonder we never heard him commentating on the British feed again. I think he was just a teeny bit too blunt and free-speaking for the British TV companies.

BrianD3

From what I can remember Coulthard wasn't the only driver to hit the pit wall in Adelaide. I think one of the Fortis hit it as well.

And Gerhard Berger hit the pit wall during qualifying at Silverstone one year too.

Going back to the topic of horrific crashes, some of the worst I've seen have been in CART/indycar. Eg the Alex Zanardi crash where both his legs are torn off and you can clearly see bits of flesh flying through the air in the photographs. Then there was the crash that killed Gordon Smiley, 200+ mph head on into the wall, car completely disintegrated. Nelson Piquet had a similar crash, he survived but had horrible leg injuries. Jeff Krosnoff died in crash where he tangled with another car and flew off the track into a tree, hitting it with the top of the cockpit.

BrianD3

fletch

zotteken wrote:

Anyone know good sites with F1-crash clips/movies??

By the way, hi all, hope to have a good time on the boards.

Cheers
Zotteken

THis is where i got the Spa 98 crash....a good few vids there

Dempsey

I remember a race with the two Ferrari(Alesi and Berger) causing a pile up on one of the turns causing the race to be restarted. The two Ferraris were written off and another team had both their driver crashed but only one of them could take the T-Car. No problems for Ferrari, they had 2 T-Cars at the time. Not a spectacular one but was annoying to see Ferrari going around with 4 cars every weekend.

Interlagos, In the Rain, The one where Jordan won when the race was abandoned. Spectacular crashing in that

Nukem

Has to be the GP where Jordan won there first GP.(Austria/Belgium?)
Coulthard aqua-planed into 2 cars came back off the wall and the carnage insued.Was it 15/16 cars in sh*t.
Excellent

Poutre

Of this season it had to be Schmucks {RALFS} crash in Indy. That was a great race with lots of high speed crashes due to debree on the track.

Kersh

I hit the pit wall in Silverstone, bout half way down, trackside, in testing in 2001, but I digress...
Purleys mashed car is in the donington museum incl the barrier the car hit. Its all concertinad up into about 4 ft long!!!
A few of the best I have seen,
Fittipaldi flipping at monza - pure class.
Spa 98 start.
Spa 98 in general - all the crashes were great.
A few horrifying ones ;
Hakkinen at Adelaide 95.
Burti at Spa 00 (i think)
Berger at Imola 89.

stejk11

Spa '98 has to be the best, the whole Schumacker and Coulthard (almost) bust up was funny too !!!