Renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was in attendance at the 2024 British GP. While at the Silverstone track, he visited the Ferrari garage and had a fascinating interaction with one of their aerodynamicists.
Accompanying him was the former Tottenham Hotspur soccer player Gary O’Reilly. The duo observed the cars very closely with Tyson getting down on his knees to measure the distance between an F1 car and the track.
He found it to be no more than three fingers of his put together. That made him recall Carlos Sainz’s infamous crash with the drain cover at the 2023 Las Vegas GP weekend. While recalling the incident, Tyson also explained why the crash happened. Speaking with O’Reilly, Tyson said,
“The air speed is going to be very high across the ground [when the car is running]. The car is dragging air with it. So, that will create partial pressure upward [from the track]. Moving air has lower pressure than stationary air. And what did I hear, at one of the races, a car drove so fast down the street that it sucked up one of the drain covers and hit the bottom of the chassis.”
When O’Reilly told him it was Sainz during the inaugural Las Vegas GP, Tyson continued, “Okay, because underneath the drain is regular air pressure and fast-moving air is lower air pressure. That’s very Bernoulli [referring to Bernoulli’s principle]. So, if you have a decrease in pressure, watch out!”
Sainz’s car came in contact with the drain cover during the first practice session of the weekend. Such was the impact of the accident that it destroyed the chassis and even damaged the survival cell, engine, energy store, and control electronics of his car. Replacing all these parts saw the Spaniard take a 10-place grid penalty.
Tyson compares G-force sustained by F1 drivers with astronauts during lift-off
A space shuttle accelerates from zero to 18,000 miles per hour in about eight and a half minutes. Despite that, F1 drivers sustain more G-force while cornering their cars. Tyson explained why by stating,
“Two things will affect the G-forces in the turn. One of them is how fast you’re going into the turn. The second is how tight the turn is. Tighter the turn, the faster you’re going will increase the G-forces sideways. And these guys are hitting 3, 4, 5G. So 5G sideways, your heart is kind of dangling there in your chest. Your head is bobbing on your head.”
Comparing the same with a NASA space shuttle lifting off, Tyson reveals the astronauts do not pull more than 3Gs. The reason behind that is the position in which astronauts are seated.
All the resultant G-force is therefore absorbed by the chest and the back area. Tyson, however, notes that the astronauts sustain that amount of G-force for the entire launch period which can go up to eight minutes.
