Kovalainen unconcious in R8LMS crash

[footie]

Heikki Kovalainen was on Sunday knocked unconscious in a crash at the Race of Champions event in Germany. "Hardcore shunt with throttle jammed and rear suspension damaged, got knocked out, now some medical checkups," the Finnish driver wrote on Twitter after the crash in an Audi R8 in Dusseldorf.


Kovalainen's British girlfriend Catherine Hyde was seated alongside the Lotus driver, who had already taken the chequered flag to win the race, but she emerged unscathed. "Catherine is sore and her back is painful, got to look after her now," 29-year-old Kovalainen, who went to a local hospital for checks, added.


He also said on Twitter that, after arriving home to Switzerland, he will have further medical checks on Monday. "Head's a bit sore, (I) was unconscious for 30 seconds," revealed Kovalainen, a former Race of Champions winner.


Information of WCF website.




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[Padi]

Happy to read this at last from some proper website, I read about it yesterday on a Finnish newspapers website and it was a real pain to read the comments, a third of them were claiming the car was an A1 or an A8 Even someone who claimed working twelve years as an Audi salesman said it was an A1, the worst thing was that there was a picture of the car Anyway, this sums up how reliable Audis are

 

[Joest]

Yeah, so unreliable that R8 LMS. Those sixty wins and five title wins over the past couple of seasons have all been complete flukes.

 

[Sunny]

Yeah, so unreliable that R8 LMS. Those sixty wins and five title wins over the past couple of seasons have all been complete flukes.

I am pretty sure he was joking. But you are confusing R8 LMS with the R8 LMP (Le Mans prototype). Two completely different cars. R8 LMS takes part in FIA GT3 races and unlike R8 LMP haven't really won anything worth mentioning. In fact, it is been pretty sucky in the FIA GT3 championship. R8 LMP on the other hand is one of the most successful sports car this side of Porsche 956 and won Le Mans 5 times.

R8 LMP

R8 LMS

 

[Centurion]

I just read on PlanetF1 that he got knocked unconscious and that his wife in the car suffered a minor fracture. The crash wasn't even that dramatic compared with how F1 cars crash into each other or into a wall barrier. The difference is that in F1, the carbon fibre smashing into bits absorbs much of the impact leaving drivers with practically zero injuries or trauma. While in a real car, the passengers absorb quite chuck of the energy.

The moral of the story is: If you want a safe car for your commute to work then buy a carbon fibre spec Caparo F1.

 

[martinbo]

^ It's Caparo T1 and no, you can't assume that as an absolute fact.

 

[Centurion]

^ It's Caparo T1 and no, you can't assume that as an absolute fact.

I know Martin. It's a silly argument I made using two premise However it does show how safe F1 is. There's been some very dramatic collisions and flips this year from which every driver has walked away from as if nothing had happened.

I would expect safety to be stepped up for next years RoC with tyre barriers along side the arena walls to cushion any derailing of Heikki's kind.

 

[Joest]

I am pretty sure he was joking. But you are confusing R8 LMS with the R8 LMP (Le Mans prototype). Two completely different cars. R8 LMS takes part in FIA GT3 races and unlike R8 LMP haven't really won anything worth mentioning. In fact, it is been pretty sucky in the FIA GT3 championship. R8 LMP on the other hand is one of the most successful sports car this side of Porsche 956 and won Le Mans 5 times.

Thanks Sunny, but with all due respect I wasn't confusing those two cars. I've been following Audi's motorsport endeavours closely since the Group B days and am well aware of the difference between an R8 LMP and an R8 LMS (note that I said "past couple of seasons"; the R8 LMP hasn't competed with factory backing since 2006.) Granted though, it's an easy mistake to make for casual fans who are unaware of the origin of the R8 road car's name and therefore that of its racing derivative (which is actually known internally as the R16.)

The R8 LMS cannot be described as "sucky". This car scored twenty three wins and three champion’s titles in its debut season last year including three race wins, six podium finishes and the top two places overall in the FIA GT3 championship you mention. It was second at the Nürburgring 24h, third at the 24 Hours of Spa (both at its first attempts) and scored six podium finishes and one overall win in the ten race VLN Endurance Racing Championship at the Nürburgring.

Its 2010 FIA GT3 championship campaign has proven to be tougher (as it has indeed also for last year's team's champions Hexis AMR), yet it has proven to be at least as consistent as its rivals and still managed one win and two podium finishes with only one race seeing no R8s in the top ten. It was third at the Nürburgring 24h (after locking out the first two rows in qualifying), was showing strongly at the front in the Spa 24h until accidents and misfortune took out several of the leading cars, and again took no fewer than six podiums in the ten VLN races.

The R8 LMS has rapidly established itself since its inception and has proved to be a hugely popular race car which sold out very quickly indeed. I look forward to seeing what the likes of United Autosports can do with it in 2011 continuing its development and success. There's more to GT racing than the FIA GT3 championship you know.

 

[footie]

I never ceases to amaze me how quickly a simple innocent post or in this case video can be turned on it's end into a brand war.

Anyway here's a different crash from the same event

 

[Sunny]

Thanks Sunny, but with all due respect I wasn't confusing those two cars. I've been following Audi's motorsport endeavours closely since the Group B days and am well aware of the difference between an R8 LMP and an R8 LMS (note that I said "past couple of seasons"; the R8 LMP hasn't competed with factory backing since 2006.) Granted though, it's an easy mistake to make for casual fans who are unaware of the origin of the R8 road car's name and therefore that of its racing derivative (which is actually known internally as the R16.)

The R8 LMS cannot be described as "sucky". This car scored twenty three wins and three champion’s titles in its debut season last year including three race wins, six podium finishes and the top two places overall in the FIA GT3 championship you mention. It was second at the Nürburgring 24h, third at the 24 Hours of Spa (both at its first attempts) and scored six podium finishes and one overall win in the ten race VLN Endurance Racing Championship at the Nürburgring.

Its 2010 FIA GT3 championship campaign has proven to be tougher (as it has indeed also for last year's team's champions Hexis AMR), yet it has proven to be at least as consistent as its rivals and still managed one win and two podium finishes with only one race seeing no R8s in the top ten. It was third at the Nürburgring 24h (after locking out the first two rows in qualifying), was showing strongly at the front in the Spa 24h until accidents and misfortune took out several of the leading cars, and again took no fewer than six podiums in the ten VLN races.

The R8 LMS has rapidly established itself since its inception and has proved to be a hugely popular race car which sold out very quickly indeed. I look forward to seeing what the likes of United Autosports can do with it in 2011 continuing its development and success. There's more to GT racing than the FIA GT3 championship you know.

Sorry for assuming you were talking bout the LMP. As for LMS, yea, sucking is probably too strong a term, but I can't think of a more pithy way to describe finishing 8th, 9th, 11th and 13th in the championship. And I am not aware of it winning any of the major 24 hr races either. Maybe it will do better in the future, but till now it's performance is not exactly something to write home about.

 

[Gullwing]

The moral of the story is: If you want a safe car for your commute to work then buy a carbon fibre spec Caparo F1.

How many people were almost killed by that think just driving it around a track (not crashing)?