My favorite Formula 1 driver, Felipe Massa, has just suffered a horrendous crash during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix. He suffered a serious head injury and is currently in intensive care after a spring somehow came loose from Rubens Barrichello’s Brawn GP car, flew toward Massa, and struck his helmet on the left side, just above Massa’s eye. He seemed to black out or something, as you can see from his helmet-cam that his hands let go of the steering wheel, he stopped directing the car, and just sped off into the grass before crashing into the tire wall. After crashing, he just sat motionless in the car, which is never, ever a good sign – racers are trained to jump out of that car as fast as possible after a crash and run as fast as they can away from it. So when you see someone just sitting there in the cockpit, you know it’s bad.
My stomach’s just churning for him and his family. Apparently once they got him to the hospital they had to put him into an induced coma for a while, but they’re bringing him back out of it for tests. Preliminary reports say that he’s suffered two skull fractures – one of the forehead on the left side, and another at the base of the skull. Not good. I can’t imagine what Felipe’s facing right now. I just hope he makes it out alright.
Apparently Rubens went straight to see Massa before he was airlifted away from the racetrack. He said, “I wanted to be there in case there was nobody from his family there. We are Brazilians and sometimes we have a family, sometimes we don’t, and when we wake up all we want to see is someone we know. Felipe had a cut on his head, which could have been from the part of my car that was on the track. He was talking, he was moving, he was conscious, but they have to analyse the cut. He was moving his arms and legs.”
Judging from that, it sounds like although Felipe may not have been conscious immediately after the track, he regained consciousness at some point, which is a really good sign. The fact that he was able to speak and move his limbs is also very promising.
Man, I also can’t even imagine how Rubens is feeling… As he mentioned, they’re both from Brazil and from all the Ferrari guys I’ve met and talked with, Rubens and Felipe seemed to share a pretty tight bond. I’m sure Rubens is just devastated.
I’ve just checked Felipe Massa’s official website. They have a press release there saying that he’s come out of surgery and that the results are “positive”. They’ll have more news in the morning, but at least so far it looks like things are progressing as well as could be expected, although he’ll still remain in intensive care for the time being.
Well, I just wanted to post something here. My thoughts and prayers go out to Felipe, his family, Rubens, and everyone at Ferrari who I’m sure will be affected by this. A lot of the guys I know and worked with at the local dealership had met Felipe and said he was just one of the nicest racers they’d ever met. And in my opinion, he was certainly one of the finest. I sincerely hope and pray that he’ll be able to make a full recovery, and – god willing – perhaps even make it behind the wheel one day soon.
(news link)