Driver escapes death in horror crash at notorious corner
A Porsche driver is recovering in hospital after a monumental crash at one of the most famous corners in world motorsport.
Manuel Gil Del Real was competing in the opening race for the Porsche Sprint Challenge North America at the Laguna Seca track in California when he suffered an apparent brake failure on the run to the infamous Corkscrew corner.
Porsche driver Manuel Gil Del Real walked away from this horrific crash. Today
The car was launched into the air and half rolled, before it crashed into a tyre barrier and through a catch fence. The car tumbled down a steep embankment before coming to rest upside down. He was in third place at the time.
Porsche Motorsport North America later released a statement confirming the driver was awake and conscious as he was transported to a local hospital.
Thankfully, no fans or trackside photographers were injured in the crash, which destroyed the fence. The series was racing as a support category for IndyCar, and the crash delayed practice for the series by over an hour to rebuild the fence.
The corner is one of the most famous in world motorsport, due to its steep decline from a blind crest. The track drops five and a half storeys in just 140m.
The corner has also been the scene of several horrific crashes usually as a result of stuck throttles or brake failures. In 1999, IndyCar driver Gonzalo Rodríguez was killed in an almost identical crash at the corner.
Gil Del Real's crash was one of several globally on an usually brutal weekend of crashes in motorsport.
In the Chinese GT Championship, a British driver said he is only alive after a rival stopped to pull him out of his burning Ferrari.
Dutchman Loek Hartog pulled over and doused the flames on Ollie Millroy’s Ferrari with a fire extinguisher before pulling him from the car.
Moments earlier, Millroy’s car had been T-boned after two rivals collided in the braking zone at the end of the back straight at the Shanghai Circuit, which hosts the Chinese Formula 1 Grand Prix.
It took fire marshals well over a minute to arrive at the scene. It also took more than 15 minutes for the on-track ambulance to arrive because the driver was reportedly asleep and could not be found.
"I am still alive tonight, entirely thanks to one man," Millroy said in a post on Instagram.
"Loek Hartog stopped instantly with no flag marshals or fire crews in sight, and risked his own life to get me out of the car."
As a result of the crash, several teams – including Millroy’s AAI Motorsport – withdrew from the championship citing safety concerns, accusing the organisers of “negligence”.
Elsewhere, the Italian Formula 1 Grand Prix was red-flagged after Charles Leclerc crashed at Monza’s high-speed Parabolica corner. Closer to home, Andrew Price was lucky to walk away uninjured from his own scary crash during the opening day of action at the World Time Attack Challenge at Sydney Motorsport Park.
