Quite Remarkable

Max Verstappen's crash with Lewis Hamilton is still not over with Red Bull asking for tougher sanctions to be imposed so we will see if the FIA are going to revisit this or we just move on.

What I find quite remarkable is what Max Vertsappen did before he hit the crash barriers. He managed to turn off the engine and put the gearbox into neutral in order to save the components. This is what makes these drivers so valuable to the teams and possibly the difference between the top 1 or 2 versus the rest. How many others would have done this and believe only a few.

To have the state of mind to be able to do this when you are heading into a barrier at over 200 mph takes some cool headed thinking. This is how much time they have to think and the choices they have to make which makes them stand out above everyone else.

Yuki Tsunoda crashed during the week yet again at a much lower speed, but the difference was he still had his car in gear and the engine running which caused more damage than there should have been. I believe this is what the majority of drivers would have done and is the difference between Verstappen's class and the way he thinks.

Red Bull stated that the repair bill for Max Verstappens car was $1.8 million but if you throw in a new gearbox and a new engine that bill changes quite considerably. The engine on it's own is north of $10.5 million and would have taken roughly 10% of the teams annual budget in one hit which would be disastrous for them mounting a sustainable title challenge this year.

The crash was reportedly a 51 G force impact which all happened in a split second due to the speed of that particular corner. I know the top drivers seem to have more time than anyone else as their world slows down as they are in that state of mind. We find this with any top sportsmen at the peak of their game as they just have more time to do things than their competitors. It is a zone that they manage to get into which others don't achieve and is regarded as the next level.

I can recall an accident I had many years ago after I had recently completed the advanced drivers course and can vouch it changes things on the road that much. A car had failed to stop at an intersection leaving me no choice but to go into a skid and had three choices. the first was to avoid the car and go into the barriers which could result in going over the bridge (not an option) or turn into the car ahead of me that had created this problem. I had spotted a young girl sitting in the back seat which was the area I was going to impact and decided the best option was the front of the car which I hit at a fair speed causing the bonnet to fly off.

These Formula One drives are at another level however and I am not surprised that they have the time to make these decisions knowing exactly what they need to do. You can't change the impact ,but you can save the car the best you can knowing a turned off engine that isn't running will possibly survive better than a running one.

The engine from the crash was flown to Honda's factory in Japan and remarkably was salvaged by the engineers who had it up and running in no time.