5 times F1 drivers suffered high G forces during a crash

Crashes are inevitable in the world of F1 despite all the precautions. The sports demand is to drive around cars on some of the world’s most dangerous tracks and at speeds that easily reach 300+ km/hr.

Honestly, this sport is not for the faint-hearted or weak-willed. These drivers carry on with their jobs irrespective of heavy rain, sunny day, or whatever. And sometimes, it’s simply not their day.

An F1 crash is incredibly different from a normal car crash. For argument purposes, though the former happens under controlled and measured circumstances, they’re still a threat to life.

F1 drivers face a G-force of up to 6G’s during races. In layman’s terms, this is the force of a driver’s face while going through high-speed corners under rapid acceleration that makes them feel a certain amount heavier than their actual physical body. (6G’s meaning six times their normal weight).

A crash from the British Grand Prix (Image via Getty)

This kind of speed causes immense stress on a driver’s body, who even end up losing significant weight during their 1-2 hours of racing. Further, their profession demands them to overtake, make moves, etc., increasing their stress, and sometimes due to innumerable factors, they might even end up in the walls.

Let’s look at some of the worst crashes in racing history that have produced tons of G-force on that driver.

#5 Lewis Hamilton’s 45G fatal shunt to the ground

Lewis Hamilton has crashed twice this year. However, his second crash at Spa came in the form of him not leaving any space for Fernando Alonso’s Alpine, going airborne as gravity pulled it back on the track at a shunt rate of about 45Gs.

White fumes that arose indicated obvious heavy damage to Hamilton’s car.

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