Wow the first pic looks fairly harmless, the second pic is brutal.

I'm sure it'll get repaired and back on the road for round 3 though.

 

lol

 

I wouldn't be too sure of that. Most of this cars 'tub' appears very intact. Here's an unassembled chassis - #055 I believe - taken inside the factory when cars were still being built. Click to enlarge...



Even if there are sections of this that have been damaged, with the way the carbon is pieced together they are able to cut out the broken pieces and replace them with something new.

>8^)
ER

 

Oh man, that's not good. Glad he's ok.

 

In this photo the entire aft section on the passenger side is missing behind the bulkhead, and obviously the engine was also torn free of the monocoque. I'm not too familiar with the criteria for repair/retub that Mclaren has, but if it was an Enzo or Carrera GT, there would be a new tub.

 

how is that car easily repairable? it has a CF chassis which means it's pretty much done once the tube is damaged.

 

That section is a luggage compartment and forward of that you will find the remote oil tank. The F1's body and chassis were made from something like 4,000 individual pieces of carbon, cut out and glued together before being baked in an autoclave to form the rigid structures. It is very feasible for McLaren to cut out damaged sections and glue in new ones in order to repair an F1 tub. McLaren are experts with carbon fiber having pioneered the technology in Formula One and certainly over the years they have needed to repair quite a few carbon chassis including many of the McLaren F1s. I don't doubt it will be difficult to repair this one, but I'd be quite surprised if they could not salvage this tub.

>8^)
ER

 

at least we know they're safe if he can split the car in half and walk away

 

That REALLY sucks, but I'm glad he's ok. And at least he's getting out and enjoying the car and pushing it hard. Maybe a little too hard, but having fun nonetheless.

 

One more point - McLaren patched this car back together in 2009/2010 for a US owner after a serious fire in the rear of the car without needing to build a new tub for it:



Many of the same items were damaged and one could even argue that the heat of the fire caused more damage with the delaminating layers of carbon fiber than this accident would have. The rebuild of this car (#067) was reported on in a story that was published in SCM in October 2010:

A McLaren F1’s Rise from the Ashes

An interesting read.

>8^)
ER