Graphic: The safety car

Most people who saw Robert Kubica’s horrific crash during the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday were sure that they had seen a driver either seriously injured or killed. Many would find it hard to believe that the Polish BMW Sauber racer was released from hospital in Montreal yesterday with nothing more than a sprained ankle.

Kubica was travelling at about 180mph on one of the fastest sectors of the circuit when he lost control, went airborne on to the grass and then hit the central concrete wall between the two sections of track with explosive force.

Apart from one wheel, everything came off the car as the central monocoque, with Kubica in it, bounced on its side across the track to the outside of the hairpin and hammered into the barriers. It took 20 minutes to ease Kubica out of the car before he was driven away by ambulance and then flown by helicopter to hospital.

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Giles Smith

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His survival is a tribute to the stringent safety standards upheld by the FIA, the sport’s governing body, and the teams and to the remarkable strength of the materials – principally carbon fibre – used to build the monocoque, or safety pod, in which the drivers sit.

Taking the FIA’s continual programme of crash testing into consideration, the modern Formula One car is the safest vehicle on the road.