‘On a dirty surface, which this bit most certainly was, the front tyres would be expected to lock-up pretty easily and, now, be very likely to produce smoke.’ Backhouse leant forward to press the space bar to let the footage run on. It did so in slow motion.
Straker strained his eyes to study the image on the screen. Saba-tino's car was moving left to right in a straight line. It approached the red-and-white kerbstones on the edge of the track before the gravel.
‘There's no lock-up,’ said Straker.
‘Nor smoke,’ offered McMahon.
‘Precisely,’ said Backhouse. ‘And apart from that tiny wisp of smoke from the rear right, none of the wheels lock-up again – even when she gets out onto the gravel. Furthermore, there seems to be no noticeable deceleration, either.’
‘Meaning what? That she didn’t brake?’
‘Or that she couldn’t.’
Straker was staring at the screen. ‘Remy's steering becoming unexpectedly heavy – is that the reason you think she left the circuit?’
Backhouse shrugged. ‘She did go straight on – after she’d tried to turn the wheel … twice.’
‘So what's caused that?’ asked McMahon.
‘It could be a number of things. The steering column might have been impeded for some reason. If it was, then the steering mechanism would have been harder to turn. The steering of an F1 car ceased to be entirely mechanical decades ago, some hydraulic assistance having been permitted under the different Formulas of recent years. To provide that assistance, there's a metering valve set on the steering column, activated by any rotation of it. That causes hydraulic flow into the pistons that apply the assistance. This metering valve is a tiny component and can be intolerant. Any dirt getting in there, for instance, could impede the flow of fluid; if Remy's car suffered that, then the steering hydraulics wouldn’t have been given any commands, resulting in no help being given to turn the steering column and therefore the front wheels. But those are the things that would be specific to the steering.
‘If there was also a simultaneous problem with the brakes, that suggests it might have been the hydraulics. One pump serves all the hydraulics on our cars. If that had failed then, automatically, the hydraulics in the steering would fail, as would the calipers in the brakes. It might have been that one of the hydraulic tubes burst: these things are only the thickness of a pencil but can still withstand the pressure of two hundred atmospheres. A burst in that system, carrying the fluid around it, could have caused an instant loss of power. Any such failure would kill the power-assistance, making the steering heavy and affect the brakes.’
‘So hydraulics seem to be the common denominator?’ suggested Straker.
‘Do these systems fail often?’ asked McMahon.
Backhouse shook his head. ‘Hardly ever, but we could never say never. It's entirely possible there could have been a catastrophic failure in any of the components, completely without warning. Around a Grand Prix circuit – particularly at race pace – the stresses and strains are immense. Who knows? A bad bump, a collision, a contact with a kerbstone – any or all such incidents could shock the system enough to cause a failure.’
Straker asked: ‘How do we narrow it down, Andy – to pinpoint the actual cause?’
‘Normally we would go over the car. We would examine each and every component, and check everything … but …’
‘… we can’t get access to the wreckage,’ confirmed McMahon.
‘We are, though, gathering all the telemetry across the car. We’ll just have to hope we can find other clues to give us an idea.’
‘We’ve got to know what happened,’ said McMahon gravely, ‘and have a solid explanation for this. Any kind of mechanical failure would leave Ptarmigan hugely vulnerable to accusations of mechanical underperformance, design underperformance, management underperformance – and, therefore, corporate underperformance. I can’t stress this enough. Identifying the reason for the failure of the car is critical to defending ourselves against the charges of corporate manslaughter.’
TWENTY-SIX
Remy Sabatino may have felt better after a modest go at her first proper meal since the accident, but she was now getting bored. A television was mounted on the far wall. Awkwardly she used what limited movement the halo brace allowed to look around her bed and bedside table, trying to find the remote. She couldn’t see it. It must be in one of the drawers, she realized, but didn’t have the mobility to check. When the next nurse attended her, Sabatino croakily asked for the remote. The medic barely nodded before leaving the room.
Ten minutes later the senior staff nurse appeared. Sabatino repeated her request to have the television on, again asking for the remote. The nurse shook her head. ‘The doctor says not to watch television,’ and dropped two celebrity magazines onto the bed tray in front of her.
Sabatino replied: ‘Why not? How could watching TV do me any harm?’ The nurse had already turned her back and was opening the door to leave.
There was no further response to Sabatino's questions.
‘What on earth is going on?’ she rasped to the empty room.
Later that afternoon Remy Sabatino was subjected to a further series of tests. Her strength seemed to be improving, but she was constantly reminded of her accident by the intense pains running down her left flank.
Helped up into a half-sitting position, Sabatino found herself able to concentrate on some of the articles in one of the trashy celebrity magazines, if only for short periods at a time. Because of the residual effects of the coma-inducing drugs, she didn’t notice that the editions she had been given were at least three months old.
Matt Straker turned to face the race engineer. ‘What you have found, Andy, seems to have narrowed down the apparent cause of the crash. It gives us something to focus our research on.’
Backhouse nodded. ‘As well as gathering the telemetry, I’ve now got the guys going through all the records of the steering mechanism, the brakes and the hydraulics – the history of each component involved, when it was made, when any of the elements were replaced, who did the work and when they were last tested. That way, we can hopefully demonstrate our system was young enough and proven enough to have been trustworthy. I’m hoping that we can show – if it was a component failure – that we were not wrong to have had faith in it for the race.’
‘Would the issues you’ve spotted have any consequences for the crash itself? How the car went on to behave? How it might have affected the spectators as it broke up?’
Backhouse shrugged. ‘I doubt it, but now that we suspect what might have gone wrong, we could take a look.’
They all turned back to face the screen.
Backhouse pressed Play. The video clip ran on.
Straker re-watched Sabatino's reaction to the steering failure. The car was shown reaching the outside of the bend, where it bounced violently over the red-and-white kerbstones around the outside edge of the corner and headed off across the gravel trap.
‘Steering and brakes are completely ineffectual across this sort of loose surface,’ Backhouse explained, ‘although Remy does do something unusual.’
Straker said: ‘Oh, yes?’
‘She reapplies the lock from the steering wheel.’
‘While she's on the gravel? Knowing it wouldn’t have any grip?’
Backhouse nodded.
