Spectator killed and several others injured at VLN race at the 'Ring

Just hope they learn something and act on it.........
 
Last edited:
It's a terrible shame when these accidents happen. :( The drivers have accepted the risk, whereas a spectator should always be safe.

I agree with D-Fence's sentiments, the faster classes of cars seems to have outgrown (in performance terms) the Nordschleife, they'll ether have to go or the track needs to be modified. One solution could be what they did to the old Hockenheim and ?sterreichring (before they ruined them): Install chicanes before high-risk sections for the VLN races.
 
Last edited:
I don't know about elsewhere but in the UK if you attend any kind of event there are signs everywhere reminding you "Motor Sport Is Dangerous". While this is, of course, an utter tragedy you should go to these things fully aware that it's impossible to mitigate against every circumstance and that on rare occasions things like this can happen.
 
That's true, there is no practical way to fully remove all risks. However, it is not an excuse not to look hard at what happened, learn from it and see if changes can be made to reduce the risk of something similar happening again.

Personally I'd rather see the GT3 cars banned from the 'ring rather than changes in the circuit. The issue of them becoming too fast for the Nordschleife has been debated before last weekend, so it's not just something that has come up as a knee jerk reaction to what happened last weekend. And the cars are only going to get faster as more and more manufacturers keep pouring more and more money into their development.
 
Personally I'd rather see the GT3 cars banned from the 'ring being slowed down rather than changes in the circuit. The issue of them becoming too fast for the Nordschleife has been debated before last weekend, so it's not just something that has come up as a knee jerk reaction to what happened last weekend. And the cars are only going to get faster as more and more manufacturers keep pouring more and more money into their development.

FTFY :)
 
Is it practical, though? Remember, GT3 is a global formula with hundreds of cars around the world, with a global BOP to make them competitive against each other. Making severe changes is going not going to be a simple job, and at the level of development these cars get is going to claw that back eventually.
 
why did the GTR flip? not because of the power or speed, but because of the aerodynamics.
not th?t hard i think to mandate changes to the floor and spoilers for next year?
 
For years it was said the GT3 rules are going to have massive changes from 2016 on, but so far this isn't happening.

And "global BOP" isn't right either, since the German ADAC is BOP'ing the GT3 cars on their own for all VLN races. But for the last two to three years it actually worked.

But yeah, would be cool if GT3 cars could go back to their original speed from late 2005/2006. Racing would be as close, tight and interesting but it would be much, much safer on the Ring - and other tracks presumably aswell.

You know what's funny though? The GTR did get an Evo package for 2015, apparently nothing has changed on the front compared to it lifting its nose up last year...
 
One small point on the fences: apparently the small fence behind the spectators was to keep spectators out of private property. Between the big fence facing the track and the little fence facing someone else's property was where they were allowed to be. Perhaps that zone should be a no-go now.

Sebring did that with chunks of the photographers' trail around the track this year--roped 'em off and declared 'em off-limits for safety reasons. I think that'd be a sensible move for the more accident-prone chunks of the ring. Move spectator zones back and/or have off-limits zones (say, if they can't buy out some of the private property behind Flugplatz's current area to give the whole zone a wider runoff/off-limits zone).

Looks like they're also examining the cars. GT3 has gotten crazy quick and a lot of what I've heard is that the flat bottoms may have contributed a bit to the lift in certain places.

Totally heartbroken for the fans and Jann. I can't imagine.
 
Wrong approach.

The Ring lives from NOT being fenced off and being a "nature track" that is completely accessible. For years, the safety standard has defined which cars can race and not the other way round. GT3 is too fast for the Nordschleife, the end. Even if that thing had just suffered a brake failure and no liftoff, it'd had hit a barrier after ~2m of sand at around 250km/h. Surely, that would not have gone better. Hell, even tourist cars are flipping left and right on ring.




(note people "far away from barrier")


 
Safety is always determined by what's in the brain of the people driving those cars.

I'd put myself on the site of the drivers and say the GT3 aren't too fast for the Nordschleife.
 
The rules are stupid in my eyes:

- Speed limit 2000/250 -> even the smaller classes achieve that, so at the end of the speedlimit zones you will have "flying starts" all over the place with cars lined up during speedlimit
- Less topspeed = more downforce possible = higher cornering speed in slower corners possible
 
And a brake-as-late-as-possible war could start, depending on how the set the zones.

So basically the same crashes as with Code 60 could occur.

Anyway, those rules will only be temporary and be gone once they changed Flugplatz so ...
 
Apart from the second entrance I think only a few of us here have cars capable of reaching the posted limits (two certain BMWs spring to mind).
 
Posting speed limits is a ridiculous and sad approach to the problem. That being said, Ice is right as far as "our" tourist laps are concerned.
My actual worry is that they might start to enforce the speed limit at Breidscheid that so far nobody adheres to... (even I ignore it, although I think the limit there makes sense).
 
Apart from the second entrance I think only a few of us here have cars capable of reaching the posted limits (two certain BMWs spring to mind).

A certain episode of TG comes to mind when Sabine Schmitz hit 105mph...in a Ford Transit (that's a delivery van, if you didn't know). I'm pretty sure most of the cars on this board would have no problem reaching 120mph(200kph).
 
Top