Quote Originally Posted by AndyL View Post

I'm not sure I fully agree with this conclusion:

The implication of this seems to be that the outcome would have been no different in Bianchi's accident if he'd hit bare armco instead of the crane, because of the speed involved.
We see 220mph Indycar crashes all year long, and in some of them the drivers don't even get a scratch. What hurt Bianchi is that he struck his head on the crane. Had he hit the Armco it would have probably been an ordinary crash.

I have not seen any injuries reported than the head injury, so you can say the car did it's job protecting him. The helmet probably deserves some credit here too because hitting your head on something at that speed is simply not survivable, yet Jules still has some hope.

I wonder how much this conclusion was influenced by the difficulty and cost of modifying (and then inspecting and certifying) all the recovery vehicles at every circuit.
The recovery vehicles wouldn't be a problem if they kept them behind the barriers. I did not know they were allowed there, but if I did, it would have been easy to see this coming.