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Thre tree is exactly there were the door probably ended up...

Really have to ask why the hell an armco barrier was up against some trees

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3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

I know, it seems unbelievable in this day and age. Shame it takes someone to get killed before they (presumably) do something about it.

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I work in civil engineering and I know that something like that would never pass any safety in design reviews

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3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

Sounds like hindsight, tbh. Before this weekend when I looked at photos like this, I definitely didn't think about the trees in safety perspect but instead "hmm, those ironic trees".

Because it's always been like that. It's been like that for decades so it stayed that way. It's essentially grandfathered in.

To me the bigger issue is the barriers folding in even minor impacts and the lack of protection at some areas of the circuit. The esses is single tyre layers. Porsche curves has no tyres. Tetre Rouge is good until the exit but you've also got to say he crashed in an unusual place

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The use of SAFER barriers in many parts of the track, especially where run off is limited would dramatically improve safety.

Or not have armco barriers abutted against trees, and like Ellis said those trees have been grandfathered in and there could have been reasons why they didn't remove them and yes hindsight is a wonderful thing, but to me it looks like a totally unnecessary risk

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"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

What a weekend... I saw the crash on the monitors but when I was in my 'commentary stint' I heard from the Eurosport production team (French) that Simonson had died. So I had to make that call on the telly... that was the most difficult thing ever, specially because we had some guys from Dailysportscar in our booth which are great friends with the Danish Aston team.

So sad, really a freak accident.

Aren't those trees on public land?

If so, good luck removing them.

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Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Armco shouldn't be moving anyway. The point in it is to keep a vehicle inside the circuit boundary. It's not really designed to absorb impacts, it's designed to do it's job without damage - something the Le Mans armco is currently very bad at. Those barriers can be against those trees without issue if there is some form of barrier in front of it to absorb impact.

The trees are fine. The armco needs a redesign and the ACO really needs to look at some run off tyre barriers or equivalent. Simonson crashed in an unusual place as he'd already exited the corner. There should not be a knee jerk reaction where people start wanting woods knocked down when the fixes are simple.

Changing the angle of the barrier somehow would definitely help

This

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Well maybe but then you need the car to be at a different angle. Frankly it's not as bad as the wall the Porsche hit in 2011.

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Maybe a bit too early, but saw this article on Autosport.com.

http://plus.autosport.com/premium/featu ... k-changes/

Honestly that's what I was thinking. The line, (and I won't quote it right) "The great tracks have consequences" was going around in my head.

That's not to say something can't be or shouldn't be done, but it need not be a redesign of the corner. Leave the chainsaws on the truck.

Also, people would hate how some guardrails in the U.S. are built. Here in CT on the Merrit Parkway the guardrails are actually bolted right to the trees in the median.

That or they're made out of wood themselves...peices of 4x4 as the main beams, and the posts are like a foot square.

The consensus in France regarding trees next to the roads is that they're actually a good thing if they're more than 7m away from the road. A few years ago most trees would be taken down during roadworks, but now when a new road is built, they either put the trees further away, or add armco next to them.
However for existing trees it is very difficult to have them removed, the region has to decide on this but it is very rare to have them removed. I can't find a legal text to back this up but aside from the ecology/safety reasons, I think that the fact that most of them were planted under Napoleon's rule (they provided shade to the soldiers walking on the roads) they're sort of protected.

A final goodbye to Allan from DailySportsCar, written by Malcolm Cracknell. Just read it. Especially those who don't really know a lot about him

http://www.dailysportscar.com/?p=9172

"He never crashed"

OT: Nice, Autosport has finally implemented "pay per article" system (1 eur).