Dude, where’s my car?

If racing drivers were a tribe, a full-throttle trip through Eau Rouge would be their right of passage. Down the steep descent, left through the tummy-crunching dip, then quickly – dangerously – right again as the track curls up and away and over a crest. A quick Google search proves this is the sort of place where downforce is as vital as a king-size dose of testosterone. Just ask Jacques Villeneuve.

Or Fabio Leimer. There he was, about halfway through the pack last month, working his way up from last place in his GP2 car. He’d tweaked his wing to reduce drag so he could overtake more easily. But without something to push the rear tyres hard into the road, they were losing the fight with traction. And then they gave up… at 140mph over the crest. So instead of sailing majestically around the bend, he continued straight on, towards the tyre wall, which really isn’t as squidgy as it looks.

“The wall came at me really quickly,” he tells us. “I took my hands off the wheel and pressed the brake as hard as I could. I almost regained control but I was going so fast, there was no time to steer away.” At full racing speed – these guys go through here at a similar rate to Vettel and his mates – his car hit the barrier and mostly turned to dust. The important bit, the one he was sat in, bounced off and landed back on the kerbing. The following cars, which hadn’t slowed down and couldn’t see the carnage ahead, missed it by inches.

“I didn’t blackout,” Fabio says. “So I knew I was sitting there at the top of a blind crest, in the path of fast-approaching traffic. That’s why I jumped out and ran away.”

Ten years ago he may not have run anywhere ever again. But now we have super-strong carbon-fibre construction and drivers are ensconced deep inside safety cells with only their eyes peeping out over the top. So does Fabio feel invincible? “We can drive more aggressively these days, because we know it’s safer,” he says. “But there’s always a risk, especially with open cockpits, and freak things can happen”.

So here’s to blokes like Fabio, and to the designers who keep them safe.  Without them, we couldn’t print this little celebration of survival.