SEPTEMBER 8, 2003

A little speculation

The accident which befell Ralf Schumacher at Monza last week was odd. It seems that the car ran into a sand trap and flipped over. Ralf emerged unscathed and the team later said that the crash had been caused by a rear suspension failure. Monza is not especially bumpy and it may be that the crash was in some way related to a small fire that Ralf had earlier in the day. It should be remembered that at Monaco in 2000 Michael Schumacher suffered a rear suspension on his Ferrari after the car broke an exhaust and the hit gases which were escaping caused the composite suspension to break and Michael to crash. It is quite possible that the pitlane fire was the ultimate cause of the failure.