Video: Fisichella blames Bourdais for crash with Nakajima in Turkish GP

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Giancarlo Fisichella reckons Sebastien Bourdais caused him to crash at the start of the Turkish Grand Prix. Fisichella said:

I made a good start but then under braking Bourdais changed direction twice and I couldn’t brake in time and went into the back of the Williams

Looking at the video it’s hard to agree with him.

Bourdais’ car appears to follow Kazuki Nakajima’s Williams at first, and from the positioning of the car it’s pretty clear he’s lining up to try a pass down the inside. He moves left for the inside line – this is no doubt what Fisichella believes is Bourdais’ ‘illegal second move’ – and as they reach the first corner Fisichella locks up his brakes and hits Nakajima’s car hard enough to fly over the top of it.

I don’t agree with Fisichella’s explanation. It would take a very harsh interpretation of the rules to conclude that Bourdais’ driving was at fault. And I think the fact Fisichella hit Nakajima so hard that his car took off shows Fisichella simply braked too late for the first corner.

If the roles were reversed and Nakajima, with six Grand Prix starts to his name, had hit Fisichella, who starts his 200th at Monaco, I think people would be calling for Nakajima to get a race ban.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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14 comments on “Video: Fisichella blames Bourdais for crash with Nakajima in Turkish GP”

  1. Huh, didn’t take Bernie long to catch up with that one…

  2. Fixed, thanks!

  3. Do you suppose Bernie’s decided that this site is a good way of finding dodgy content?

  4. Alianora – perhaps, but in the top 100 videos article I did in 2006, eight of the top ten were all still available. And a quick search revealed many examples of the missing two: Top 100 F1 videos part X – 10-1.

  5. It seems only the new F1 videos get taken down. Is this because Bernie doesnt own the rights to the older ones?

  6. Pre-1981 material is generally not owned by Formula One Management.

  7. now we have the great highligts on F1 official site. The Fisichella Nakajima crash comes with a dramatic music attached to it :-)

    Fisi’s fault I would say without too much doubt (the crash, not the video)

  8. Scott Joslin
    13th May 2008, 15:22

    Fisi’s fault I am afraid, I would accept that kind of error from a rookie but not from someone with over 10yrs experience in F1. Fisi knew he was last on the grid and should have took care knowing the chance of a crash at turn 1 was high, also, he had crashed twice at turn 1 in Turkey before, surely caution was needed!

  9. Its a bit of Fisi’s fault, but you can see Sebastien move first to the right then to the left. Its possible Fisi was about to hit the brake pedals when Seb made his move and thus missed his brake point.

  10. Fisi’s brakes were still locked as he passed the apex. It didn’t matter what anyone else did he was going to crash. Besides it’s the first corner of a race people are going to move around all over the place looking for gaps.

    If you start last you either have to make a great start and make up a lot of positions or be conservative into the first corner and hope that you make your way through any carnage. You cannot brake late and hope no-one moves and a gap appears. It was stupid.

  11. Fisi doesn’t have a lot of experience starting in DFL, but if he’s going to race with Force India he better quit making excuses and start getting used to it.

  12. I think its just a case of Fisichella trying to deflect blame for the accident onto Bourdais, in a manner that is simular to Coulthard’s remarks about Felipe Massa in Australia.
    From what I have seen of the video, Bourdais makes a clean move infront of Fisichella. This move may have startled Fisichella, as it was swift, but once Giancarlo had locked his front tyres, he was already into Nakajima.
    It was his mistake, Fisichella’s, and no one elses.
    It is amusing, that some of F1’s most seasoned drivers, are the ones making the biggest mistakes. As mentioned earlier, Coulthard has already been involved in two crashes and an altercation in Barcelona.
    I put it down to pure frustration, and in knowing that their time in the sport is now limited.

  13. The video’s not there any more – I guess Bernie’s up to the usual copyright-chasing…

  14. Fixed, thanks.

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