It’s not hard to break vertebrae. Frankly, it’s far more common in racecars than it should be.
Ferdinand Habsburg suffered a back injury earlier in the week in a crash while testing the new Alpine A424. Thankfully, these injuries are often not very serious, but they can sometimes have a prolonged recovery period, may require surgery, and can be prone to a re-fracture later on.
To understand why these occur, we must first understand the injury and the spinal anatomy. (For the record, I’m not part of his care team, just an educated analyst; we will have to make some assumptions)
The spinal column comprises 24 individual vertebrae and nine fused vertebrae, all split into five areas: cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral, and coccyx.
Each non-fused vertebrae has numerous parts as well. In an average, healthy adult, these are all roughly the same shape and formation. Naturally, every human is unique and sometimes has a specific physiology that may account for a higher preponderance of injury. I am not making suggestions; that’s just reality.
We should focus on a few critical pieces of a vertebral segment, primarily the lamina, pedicle, and transverse processes. The transverse process is the most commonly fractured point on the vertebral body, or facet, in a rotational-type impact. Think of the car stepping out from the rear and then impacting laterally or ‘slapping’ the wall. The good news with these types of fractures is that they rarely require anything other than immobilization and rest to heal.
Motorsport's most common injury pattern is high axial loading or compression-type fractures. These are the first points of concern when we see a significant vertical impact. Sausage curbs would be the number 1 reason. But We can also look at a high-energy flip like Anthony Davidson in his Toyota at Le Mans in 2012, which found him with two fractures. The injury happened because of a rotational impact and the solid slapdown of the front right tire.
Additionally, with a high frontal impact, you can see compression fractures because of how drivers sit in the car. A feet-high position in LMP and Formula-type cars puts the lower thoracic and lumbar spine in a unique position to not only be loaded axially. Still, because of the curve in the seat, it causes what we call a wedge fracture. Often, this will be a split in the body or the face of the vertebrae near the pedicle or through the middle to front third. We can also see a burst-type fracture, where, as the name implies, the body of the vertebrae bursts or crushes because of the loading and forces imparted. The primary concern with a burst fracture is if a shearing event or fragmentation enters the spinal canal, which in the above image is labeled as the vertebral foramen, where the spinal cord runs. If that occurs, paralysis can occur. This was the primary injury pathway for Robert Wickens in his crash at Pocono and that of Dario Franchitti.
I took two X-rays here from a Radiopedia.com search to show both. You can see how that can be a problem by comparing the above anatomical pictures.
The first image here is of a Lumbar Burst fracture—this is the sagittal, or side, on view. We can see how the facet, or lovely square, of the vertebrae is squished together with multiple individual fragments.
The second is the same patient but from the axial or top-down view of the same injury.
This shows us that the top surface of these vertebrae has impacted the spinal canal. The spinal canal should generally have a clean, uninterrupted horseshoe-type appearance, a potential injury that can cause paralysis.
The following image is of a wedge-type fracture. As we said earlier, these are common in frontal impacts, such as going straight into a tire wall.
I highlighted the area to show how a wedge has formed through the middle of the vertebrae's body.
So .. why do we care? Well, Habsburg has not likely suffered a burst-type injury and is likely one of the more minor types above. We know he didn’t require surgical intervention and is just in a brace, so he will recover well and be back in a car in a few months.
Today, Alpine has tagged Paul-Loup Chatin to take over for Barcelona. He’s a quick driver, having been pared off with Ben Keating in LMP2 for some time and with multiple wins.
How do we prevent this stuff from continuing?
Well, it’s an easy answer and a difficult one all at once.
First, we must throw out anything that may cause this to happen artificially. Sausage Kerbs—that means you. I cannot understand why the FIA insists on placing ramps around a race circuit when cars will not tolerate an encounter well. An incredible amount of evidence has shown us that not only do these cause crashes of immense proportions, but they also have the potential to cause incidents in which the safety systems fail or exceed their design limits.
Secondly, deformable or energy-absorbing structures must be made more meaningful. The FIA mandates front, rear, and side impact structures, which have been very successful in the past few years in preventing severe injuries. But I think we can do more. Primarily, when we think about these high-energy events, putting a deformable element under the driver’s butt between the floor and the seat insert is the right way. Historically, seat inserts have been made of a two-part epoxy foam, and single seaters have often used a Creafoam bead seat insert, a single-use energy absorption seat molded to the driver.
I want to go further and use an engineered solution, like this product from ERG Aerospace. They make a metal or carbon energy-absorbing foam that deforms permanently at a known and constant rate. This could be considered a mini SAFER Barrier in the car itself. The vehicles would have to be appropriately fit for it, but they should be able to be integrated quite quickly without much difficulty. This would reduce the axial loading significantly in frontal impacts, reducing the likelihood of these injuries even more.
We should all be happy that Ferdinand is relatively okay; heal quickly!!
Logan, Logan, Logan…
What an awful start to the weekend. A fixed chassis into a big off in FP1 through a massive moment of understeer caused by none other than himself not realizing where he was on track.
I don’t know what to make of this anymore. Despite some success in the lower formulas, this isn’t working and isn’t likely to ever work. Being part of a team that keeps its inventory in an Excel sheet, one that doesn’t have spares available, and one that doesn’t seem to have any direction will never result in a competitive entry. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to be able to leap F1; I think Williams has plenty of blame to share. Dump Logan, stop going it alone and reach out to Michael.
Personally speaking, it’s time for Williams to retire from F1 as a solo effort. Partner with Andretti for “Williams/Andretti F1 Powered by Cadillac.” The decline has been sharp and steady, and it has to end. Go to McLaren, build a private label Williams GP edition, and go GTP/LMH racing.
It would be the intelligent thing to do and close a Williams/Andretti historical loop from 1993.
As for the conspiracy theories that Williams is screwing Logan over, just .. no. This isn’t a thing. They gave him the repaired tub because that’s what they have available. It takes so long to repair and rebuild a car; switching tubs between Albon and Seargant makes no sense and would likely result in some mechanical failure or problem with how rushed it would be. It’s hilarious and sad to see people suggesting this.
Hilarious because people have no idea how long and how hard it is to build a racecar up from a naked tub, and also sad that they are assuming that a team who is struggling to stay alive would have the capacity to screw another driver over intentionally. Where is the benefit? So you can drop Sargeant for Antonelli?
It is not going to happen. I don’t get it. Frankly, anyone who thinks this is real is a fool.
Object Permanence.
NASCAR, seriously, let’s have a serious conversation for a minute. Get close so I know you’re listening.
I get it—safety is your thing. It’s always going to be. But you have to relax a little bit.
You’ve worked with Goodyear to develop a wet tire. You’ve had a chance to use it in competition more than once. It’s been fine and successful. Please, let the cars run in actual wet weather. If you’re going to use the jet dryers, blowers, and the air-titan thing, and then run 35 laps of yellow/green “racing” so the track is barely damp, that entirely defeats a wet compound. Just let the team's hand groove tires, then. Give them a standard tire pattern to let them cut their own “slicktermediates”
No, just let them run. Let them race. Let them figure out how to make this work properly even if that means crashing. You already have an issue attracting live audiences, you have problems with TV audiences. Give people tuning in something to get excited about. Let them learn what a wet-to-dry strategy looks like. Instead of capitalizing on what might have been an incredible storyline, you ensured the track was barely damp and within 26 laps, or about 9 minutes worth of racing, had a dry line, causing teams to switch to a dry setup come the competition yellow.
Hell, even sim-racers experiencing rain in iRacing for the first time have seen how absolutely treacherous it can be. This rare element will create some of the best racing you could imagine.
Please. I’m begging you. Let chaos reign and let wet-weather racing happen.
MotoGP and Liberty are together.
That happened faster than we thought.
Neat. Hope we get an easier way to watch it in the US.
For a small sum of 4.2 Billion, I really hope they want to make good on their investment. I’ll fire up the Johnsonville Semi-Truck Grille .. Road America is calling.
Gray fought the Law, and the law won.
Gray Gaulding, who is a part-time NASCAR driver, was arrested and subsequently suspended from NASCAR indefinitely after a Domestic Violence incident on Tuesday in North Carolina.
He’s made around 160 starts in numerous disciplines.
He was released with no bond on misdemeanor charges and promised to return to a court hearing in June.
We don’t need him back in the sport. Whatever the details, they’re irrelevant, and hopefully, his victim is healing and is able to move on. An old EMS partner of mine was murdered in 2021, she didn’t deserve it. This is a little bit personal.
The US National Domestic Violence Hotline is 800-799-7233 or call 911
The UK Hotline is 0808 2000 247 or call 999
Don’t be a victim, get help if you need it.
People are quite upset with Mohammed Ben Sulayem.
It's a little bit of an old report here, but the FIA’s ethics committee cleared him of any wrongdoing. It sounds like any other institution that investigates itself.
There is nothing to see here. Move along.
Is F1 Las Vegas in trouble?
Boy howdy, this is just getting started. While I don’t suspect that the race will be canceled, I have a feeling that an extension beyond its initial three-year agreement is unlikely to happen.
Local news stations and newspapers have covered these issues, but bigger outlets have largely ignored them.
Between significant lost revenue for small businesses, difficulties in transportation and logistics, and disrupted work schedules, it’s all adding up to be a problem.
Lawsuits are now flying around, and Clark County is looking closely at the future of the race.
This will be a fun watch. I was not a fan of this event, and will probably never be.
As always, thanks for reading, and enjoy the weekend. Like, share, subscribe.