Son of World Champion in Motorbikes and F1 dies in Formula 2 crash...

Henry Surtees, son of John Surtees who is the only man in motorsport history to have won World Championships on both 2 wheels and 4 wheels died on Sunday after his crash at Brands Hatch.

Henry was following in his father's footsteps of motorsport.

More info can be found from the following websites:
itv-f1 website

Formula 2 Official Website

There was nothing Henry could do, another incident from another driver meant a wheel came flying off and hit his head, knocking him out and he rocketted off straight into some tyre barriers.

The last death I can remember in motorsport was Ayrton Senna's at the 1994 San Marino GP also in bizarre circumstances.

Condolescences to his friends and family.

Felipe Massa is in critical condition after a spring from a rival car penetrated the visor on his helmet and struck him above the eye, he then collided into a wall of tires. Originally it was thought that he had experienced steering failure, but after inspections of the replay Massa made no attempt to keep the car on thr track, which meant he was nocked out before he made contact with the wall.

The last I heard he was comatose but im not sure what the latest is regarding his health.

It's always sad when someone dies, our thoughts are with his family during this extremely difficult time.

Just curious? When you say motorsport are you referring to just in Formula 1/Europe? I remember quite a few NASCAR deaths since then.... Just curious though

Well considering I mention 2 wheels and 4 wheels meaning motorbikes so therefore not restricted to the one region.
And wondered when someone was going to respond!
Lurch you're a little bit behind the times lol He's out of the artificial coma after surgery for his fractured skull as it was a suspension component from Barrichello's car that fell of, bounced on the track and hit Massa in the head.
Massa, slightly concussed only has just enough consciousness to hit the brakes, but his right foot is still on the throttle so he hits the tyre wall at around 150mph or something.
Full details of the crash are in this video

His replacement for the European GP is Michael Schumacher. We don't know if it's for the rest of the season however.

Back to the original incident though...Both these accidents have once again brought up the issue of open cockpit racing and there isn't really much else to do to make it safer for drivers other than to make the suspension parts more and more robust if you ask me.

When you get into the race car you are always aware of the possibility that something bad could happen, as with any other sport... Earlier this century NASCAR had a couple deaths which brought up some safety issues, and a lot of things were changed. NASCAR has added restrictor plates to make certain tracks safer, not sure how that works because I'm not the racing expert here... If you say the last death was 1994, then it seems to me as if deaths in open-wheel racing are extremely rare.

In the past 2 decades they are.
Before that, however, when F1 was started, deaths were widely accepted as part of the sport. In fact, at the time racing was considered "safe" despite the increasing frequency of deaths.

On 01-Aug-2009 Kenny 2x4 said:

Well considering I mention 2 wheels and 4 wheels meaning motorbikes so therefore not restricted to the one region.
And wondered when someone was going to respond!
Lurch you're a little bit behind the times lol He's out of the artificial coma after surgery for his fractured skull as it was a suspension component from Barrichello's car that fell of, bounced on the track and hit Massa in the head.
Massa, slightly concussed only has just enough consciousness to hit the brakes, but his right foot is still on the throttle so he hits the tyre wall at around 150mph or something.
Full details of the crash are in this video

His replacement for the European GP is Michael Schumacher. We don't know if it's for the rest of the season however.

Back to the original incident though...Both these accidents have once again brought up the issue of open cockpit racing and there isn't really much else to do to make it safer for drivers other than to make the suspension parts more and more robust if you ask me.

yeah I realised like the next day, sorry, my bad

lol It's fine.
There are still talks about how to improve the safety and quite frankly...there isn't much the FIA can do really.

The helmets are carbon fibre now right? Was that meant to be what stopped the accident from being any worse

Indeed they are, but there are various polyfibres that are also used, some aluminium, titanium and kevlar layers.