‘Why would she do that?’
‘Because it's doing something.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked McMahon.
‘Remy was hurtling forwards, effectively out of control. Instinctively, she should be braking right here – except that, on this loose gravel, any brake pressure would surely result in locked-up wheels. But, look, she's not even doing that – all four wheels are still rolling.’
‘So it did look like the brakes failed?’
Backhouse shrugged. ‘We’ll have to wait to read the tea leaves. But if she's not getting any deceleration from the brakes, and you’ve nothing left, you might try anything to slow down; hence it looks like she's turned the steering wheel to try and use the angle of the front wheels as a some sort of retardant.’
‘So the steering is working here?’ McMahon offered. ‘No longer heavy?’
‘On loose gravel, Sandy, the steering probably would turn.’
‘And how much effect did doing this have?’ Straker asked.
‘Nothing significant.’
Straker examined the screen closely. ‘But by turning the wheels she meant to create something of a plough effect?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘At that speed, Andy, wouldn’t the gravel, stones, dust – whatever – ruck up in front of the wheels? Spray outwards?’
Backhouse nodded.
‘Why isn’t it, then?’
Backhouse's face showed genuine surprise.
He peered in closer to study Straker's observation.
He ran the footage back and forward several times, to make sure.
‘Well, I’ll be…’
As the footage of the crash was run on, the next occurrence was the car striking the tyre wall.
Backhouse stopped the footage again. ‘This is how the crash became so catastrophic,’ he said, ‘how the subsequent damage was done.’
The frozen frame showed the Ptarmigan at the moment it made contact with the tyres. ‘We can see here, very clearly, the speed of her impact,’ said Backhouse. To make the point, he ran his finger across the screen from where Sabatino had left the track to her point of collision. ‘Modern circuits have sizeable run-off areas, across which cars are given a chance of slowing down, long before they come into contact with anything solid. Formula One has instituted massive improvements to this idea over the years. Early on, it was simply straw bales lining the track. Then we saw speed traps made from wire netting held up by fence posts, which had to be abandoned because some wretched drivers were nearly decapitated. One of the crucial breakthroughs in safety, where space is tight, was the development of the Armco barrier. In more spacious circuits, there was a move to wide, loose-lying gravel traps – designed to slow cars down with minimal forces of deceleration. The most modern circuits nowadays have large expanses of asphalt, where the cars can slow down over much longer distances.’
‘But?’
‘The Zhar-ptitsa appears to comply with all those modern safety standards, but it doesn’t quite, somehow.’
‘That's a little cryptic,’ said McMahon. ‘In what way?’
Backhouse responded: ‘They’ve used tryes, rather than the more modern interlocking Tecpro barriers and, most significantly, they’ve used a gravel trap here, rather than the more recent preference of an asphalt run-off.’
‘So?’
‘Remy went across that gravel trap extraordinarily quickly.’
‘Why wouldn’t she?’ asked the lawyer. ‘How fast was she going when she left the track?’
‘Probably a hundred and eighty-plus miles an hour.’
‘So she was going to be going fast,’ added McMahon.
‘No question,’ countered Backhouse. ‘But my point is that a gravel run-off should still offer some deceleration. It should do something to slow a car down, even one going this fast. I’m saying it didn’t seem to offer her any. The gravel did almost nothing to slow the speed of the car.’
Straker latched onto this observation. ‘Could that be connected in some way to the lack of gravel spray we saw as Remy turned the wheel?’
Backhouse pulled a face. ‘Possibly. It might have something to do with the way the trap was made? The type of gravel they used? The depth of it, perhaps?’
Straker was silent.
‘Then,’ said Backhouse, ‘there's the angle of impact. Current design, where possible, constructs barriers, walls and perimeters at a very shallow angle to the track. A car is meant to glance off on its initial contact with something solid, or at least merge with it slowly, so as to slow the car down without a sudden impact.’
‘And here?’
‘The outer concrete wall, and the tyre buffer in front of it, are at a pretty steep angle to the direction of travel.’
‘So the impact was going to be more severe?’
‘Exactly.’
