Pietro Fittipaldi, 2018

Pietro Fittipaldi suffers suspected leg fractures in Spa crash

World Endurance Championship

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A heavy crash for Pietro Fittipaldi (see video above) during qualifying for this weekend’s Six Hours of Spa has left the World Endurance Championship racer with suspected broken legs.

The DragonSpeed driver lost control of his car at Radillon and crashed head-on into the barriers.

An official bulletin from the FIA noted: “The driver, who was conscious at all times, was attended immediately bu the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps Medical Services and FIA Medical Delegate Jacques Tropenat, extracted from the and taken by helicopter to the Centre Hospitalier de la Citadelle de Liege with suspected fractures to both legs.

“He is accompanied by the DragonSpeed team manager and his condition is not life-threatening.”

Fittipaldi had been the quickest of the non-hybrid LMP1 driver in the final practice session earlier in the day. His injuries will put his participation in next month’s Le Mans 24 Hours in serious doubt. The 21-year-old was also due to make his debut in the Indianapolis 500 for Dale Coyne later this month.

Toyota swept the front row of the grid for the first race of the 2018-19 WEC season. Kamui Kobayashi put the number seven car he shares with Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez on from pole position ahead of the sister car of Fernando Alonso, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima. The two Rebellion entries share the second row: Neel Jani, Andre Lotterer and Bruno Senna were 1.8 seconds off pole position in their Gibson.

Fittipaldi’s car, which he shares with Ben Hanley and Henrik Heman, had qualified seventh behind team mates Vitaly Petrov and Mikhail Aleshin, and the ByKolles car of Oliver Webb, Dominik Kraihamer and Tom Dillmann.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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9 comments on “Pietro Fittipaldi suffers suspected leg fractures in Spa crash”

  1. Hope Fittipaldi is ok. Looked nasty.

    Glad to see Alonso doing well..

    Keith will there be more news on WEC? I’ve had to desert this site and look on motorsport etc for practice / qualifying news …

  2. Terrible crzsh. Hope he’ll get well soon but Le Mans and Indy 500 are over for him.

  3. Odd crash. Snapped on him without hitting the curb or anything, wonder if something broke?

    1. It’s very strange; it looks like the power cut (notice the headlights flicker) and he hits a bump of some sort (but I don’t recall any bump being at that location). The car is pointed frame left, there’s a bounce, it seems to get thrown a few inches frame right, and then he’s just a passenger.

      Actually on further review there looks to be some slight porpoising as he begins turning right into the corner. Maybe the frequency built causing the front wheels to loose contact with the road.

      1. I think even if the tires lost contact for a tiny bit, then the car would settle down again. There don’t seem to be any wild corrections either. I think the headlights flickering – which correspond fully with the car losing it, unlike the bottoming – might really have something to do with it.

    2. @george also odd that the headlights turn off right before the car snaps to the left.

  4. Kazuki Nakajima is sharing the car with Alonso and Buemi. Not Kobayashi.

  5. Alonso et al now on pole.
    Conway / Kobyashi car excluded due to “incorrect declaration of fuel flow meter”.

  6. Who is commentator?

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