Craig Breen

[spyros]

Happy Birthday to Craig who would’ve celebrated his 34th birthday today and is probably smiling up there & laughing about the new stupid scoring system and would’ve loved Hyundai’s i20 livery this year. I bet he would’ve driven the rails of this car in Sweden & all the fast gravel events (& maybe some tarmac) and we would get to see those stage end interviews where he’s happy & laughing like last year. Still feels like a huge chunk of life and happiness (& competitiveness) missing from the WRC service park. Making our hearts beat ever so faster since we’re anxious for him to get that first win.

Best post last 10 years.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Its strange we still havent had any more details of the accident from the team or the cause of death. You'd think after a WRC fatality it would get a full investigation or enquiry and would've revealed everything and any lessons to be learned.

[ictus]

Its strange we still havent had any more details of the accident from the team or the cause of death. You'd think after a WRC fatality it would get a full investigation or enquiry and would've revealed everything and any lessons to be learned.

I'm sure the ones that need to know - know. Others out of respect should mind their business

[seb_sh]

I'm sure the ones that need to know - know. Others out of respect should mind their business

I don't like this head in the sand way, some official report should be published wether it was a freak accident or they found some weakness in the Rally1s that needs to be improved. It doesn't have to go into details but a closed loop is usually not healthy.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

This was the last we were told in April 2023:

"Hyundai Motorsport and the FIA are working together to review all aspects of the incident."

But no result of this review have been published.

If it was found to be a freak accident and nothing can be done to avoid a similar one then they should just confirm this.

[TypeR]

Every sensible person puts 1+1 together, no extra detailed explanation needed.

You didn't copy the whole section..

In April Abiteboul said:

“Road conditions were slippery and the car slid off the road at a relatively low speed and made contact with a wooden fence. A post from this fence intruded into the cabin through the driver’s side window.

As far as can be ascertained, there was no issue with any element of the car, the tires or the safety equipment.''

Let the champ be!

[denkimi]

there clearly are some serious issues with the tubular chassis concerning the puncturing of objects into the cockpit.
they put foam everywhere, but there is nothing made of solid metal anymore to stop things getting in.

but what happened to breen was a freak accident. you can never make a rally car completely impervious.

[Mirek]

there clearly are some serious issues with the tubular chassis concerning the puncturing of objects into the cockpit.

The issue is that penetration of a rally/race car by an object with small cross section is virtually impossible to prevent because the kinetic energy of the car is way too much for creating any sort of working protection. Moreover in most cases the objects penetrates the cockpit through the windshield or side windows. Even if you put a bullet proof glass (which is super heavy) it will not be enough to prevent penetration by something like a steel pipe at higher speeds. It's not an issue of a tube frame.

Just to illustrate what I am talking about. The WRC car with the crew weights around 1400 kg. If it is going 100 km/h it has a kinetic energy equivalent to a shot from this.


If you have an object with a small cross-section it will penetrate whatever you can build into a car. I remember I saw a railguard penetrating an engine block of a BMW X5 in a Kubica-style accident.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Breen's off was officially classsed as low speed. And the impact was side-on as the post went into the side window. None of this impact was anything like a shot from a howitzer.

Freak accident or not, I'd like to see it confirmed how the FIA saw it, and them clarify nothing can be done to prevent such a thing happening again.

[Mirek]

Breen's off was officially classsed as low speed. And the impact was side-on as the post went into the side window. None of this impact was anything like a shot from a howitzer.

Freak accident or not, I'd like to see it confirmed how the FIA saw it, and them clarify nothing can be done to prevent such a thing happening again.

Exactly. A shot from a pistol is 500J, that is 2000x less and an equivalent of a car moving by a speed of 2 km/h but you still need 20 mm thick glass to stop it. That is about 25 kg for a side window (glass alone, not a frame to hold it during a crash). For sure the bullet has a smaller cross section than a pole so the penetration ability will be lesser but for an idea about what energies we are talking about it is a good comparison I think.