How's Your Performance Culture?
Yesterday during the Bahrain Grand Prix I, like many millions of others watching, witnessed a truly horrific crash when Romain Grosjean’s F1 car speared off the track at 140mph, piercing the crash barrier, breaking in two, and exploding in a fireball. It was shocking to see the severity of the force of impact (measured at 53G) and the ensuing fire, followed soon after by massive relief at seeing Grosjean sitting in the medical car seemingly unscathed apart from minor burns to his hands.
If you haven’t seen it, there's a link at the bottom of this article.
His escape was principally down to the high performance culture that exists in F1, not just to do with the relentless pursuit of speed, but also of safety too. Watching the replays, I timed the following events:
- 6 seconds after impact, the race was stopped
- 8 seconds after impact, the first fire extinguisher was spraying onto Grosjean’s car and the medical crew arrived at the crash site
- 28 seconds after impact, Grosjean was out of the car and in the care of F1’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr Ian Roberts
So, how did a high performance culture enable his escape?
Three steps . . .
1. Preparation & Prevention
- Advances and innovation in car design, including the survival cell, the ‘Halo’ head protection, and the ‘Head & Neck Safety (HANS) device’ to name but a few
- Track facilities where the right equipment is in the right place with fully trained and experienced personnel - most races it’s never used, but it’s always there
- Endless modelling, simulation and practice for numerous possible scenarios by the teams, the venues, and the governing body
- Strong rules and regulations coupled with testing and enforcement, such as driver extraction tests in the event of a crash
- Rigorous procedures on race day, including having the medical car follow the F1 cars around on the first lap, when the risk of incident is at it's greatest
- Clear definition of roles and responsibilities in the event of incident
- A strong foundation of mutual respect, openness and cooperation between all parties, including competitors, on matters of safety
2. Response
- Immediacy and strength of action to such an incident, as can be seen from the timings above
- Putting the practice into action - the fire marshall using the first extinguisher, the driver extracting himself from the car amidst the heat, damage, and flames, the Chief Medical Officer focused on supporting the driver in getting out and administering medical care, the backup from the medical car driver with a further extinguisher to clear a path through the flames. All involved knew exactly what they needed to do and acted quickly but calmly.
3. Lessons to be Learned & Continuous Improvement
- Despite all of the above, the simple facts are that the car should not have pierced the crash barrier, it should not have broken in two in the manner it did (although some elements of the cars are designed to break on impact to dissipate some of the energy), and it should not have burst into flames.
- One thing I am certain of is that all parties will come together to conduct a detailed forensic analysis to identify exactly what happened, why, and what can be improved.
- Changes will be designed, tested, and implemented - this was demonstrated following the last serious incident where Jules Bianchi lost his life. It was this incident that resulted in the ‘Halo’ being introduced to F1 cars, the structure that is largely being credited with saving Romain Grosjean’s life yesterday.
It’s this high performance culture that propels the very highest performers to winning championships, but also to ensuring that Romain Grosjean will be going home soon to see his wife and children. It could have been so different . . . how’s your performance culture compare?
Romain Grosjean's miracle escape from fireball Haas crash at Bahrain GP
#f1 #fia #romaingrosjean #safety #culture #highperformance