Stéphane Ortelli escapes bad crash in 1,000 km of Monza; Oreca presses on

[togos452]

Stéphane Ortelli, in the # 5 Courage-Oreca LC70 Judd, had a bad crash in the 1,000 km of Monza on April 27th but came away with bruises and a minor fracture of his lower leg.

(Le Mans Series race)

YouTube - STEPHANE ORTELLI Faced Fear (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fu4ZxIdcq8)

Unique view:

YouTube - 1000km Monza 2008- Ortelli Crash (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96h2w-TsgOY)

Reports from Monza, Italy:

Le Mans Series (http://racing.oreca.fr/index.aspx?section=102&news=415)

1,000 km of Monza (http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/event/176/2008-Le-Mans-Series-Monza-1000-km.html)

Update on Ortelli:

Stéphane Ortelli - Les archives - Les 1000 km de Monza le Mans Series bilan santé à Monaco (http://www.stephaneortelli.net/archives/archives08/monza-bilan-sante-monaco.html)

Oreca helped with the winning Mazda from the 1991 24 Hours of Le Mans and also developed the dominating Viper GTS-R. Oreca purchased Courage Competition (supplied LC75s for the four Acura LMP2 teams in ALMS) last September.

COURAGE COMPETITION - site officiel - the official website (http://www.courage-competition.com/)

Le Mans Series (http://www.lemans-series.com/en/s01_home/s01p01_home.php)

Courage-Oreca LC70 with Judd V-10 (http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/car/3690/Courage-Oreca-LC70-Judd.html)

Oreca's Chairman Hughes de Chaunac on the left with Ortelli at Monza

http://orecacompetition.havassports.net/multimedia/medias/LMS%20Monza%20steph%20&%20hugues.jpg

# 5 car

ImageShack - Hosting :: guest600yv1qi2.jpg (http://img91.imageshack.us/my.php?image=guest600yv1qi2.jpg)

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/928/guest600yv1qi2.th.jpg

http://www.blogoreca.fr/images/0%20HORS%20GALERIE/LA%205%20490.jpg

[ScionDriver]

Yeah I saw this a day or two after it happened. That is one nasty looking accident I am glad to hear he was all right, that was quite bad. You know its bad when even SportsCenter shows a clip from a racing league other than IRL or NASCAR.

[henk4]

he seems to be doing fine, it could have been much worse.
Here is another pic, (together with Soheil) showing him close to heat of the action as usual;)

[Dantera22B]

That was a true demonstration of how well built these cars are. That could have been even worse had it been a few inches closer to that Audi. Glad to hear he's OK though. Whats the chances of him racing at Le Mans now? Reckon he'll drive regardless of his fitness?

[faksta]

I've heard he will miss Spa only and will take a Le Mans start.

[Dantera22B]

Good man.

[teecars]

Very fortunate

[CdocZ]

What was the cause? It was a very oddly sharp turn before the car took off, with no visual cues I can see.

[Ferrer]

What was the cause? It was a very oddly sharp turn before the car took off, with no visual cues I can see.
IIRC some part of the car broke and then he had the massive crash.

[faksta]

From what I've heard it was his own breaking mistake - he turned the wheel too early and sharply, so he lost control.

[Zytek_Fan]

If I was driving that Audi that he narrowly missed, I would have stopped and seen if he needed help.
An accident like that isn't something that you just drive past.

[Matra et Alpine]

Not clever to stop on a race track where others are liekly to then hit you :(
Secondly, getting out of a car unaided can take a whlie.
Finally, a driver isn't trained or prepared for an incident liek a marshal.
Unless there are huge flames, the best thing to do in a major accident is leave a driver in a car until a paramedic/doctor can evaluate and remove them

[faksta]

Team Oreca Matmut boss has just said on TV that the reason of an accident was a broken rear wing, not Ortelli's mistake as I've heard before. He and a translator spoke at the same time, and the latter lost some points, but as far as I've heard, some GT car hit Ortelli's Courage 2 laps before an accident and damaged its wing.

[Zytek_Fan]

Team Oreca Matmut boss has just said on TV that the reason of an accident was a broken rear wing, not Ortelli's mistake as I've heard before. He and a translator spoke at the same time, and the latter lost some points, but as far as I've heard, some GT car hit Ortelli's Courage 2 laps before an accident and damaged its wing.

I thought people were saying that he had a massive brake lockup...strange for a wing failure to cause an incident like that.

[faksta]

Initial indications had suggested that a brake problem caused Ortelli's car to spin and then become airborne, but Panis said the team now believed a wing problem was the culprit.

"We found what happened," he said. "It was the flap of the wing, the glue, I don't know what for, it came away.

"This happened when Ortelli was 70 metres before the braking area, so when he hit the brakes we saw on the data that already the downforce had disappeared.

"This spun his car and he went on to the grass. There were some bumps and this made the car take off.

autosport.com - Le Mans News: Ortelli expected to be fit for Le Mans (http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/67140)

[Chernaudi]

Is there any definitive word on what caused the accident? I kind of doubt the rear wing theory, as it seemed to stay on the car until it's rear impacted the ground during the flip. It seemed more like the rear brakes failed or locked up, or the rear suspension collapsed. And it's believed that if it was a suspension failure, it was due to contact with a GT car, though I don't get LMS coverage where I live aside from various forums and press releases.

Any one have anymore info on what broke on the LC70?

[Zytek_Fan]

Is there any definitive word on what caused the accident? I kind of doubt the rear wing theory, as it seemed to stay on the car until it's rear impacted the ground during the flip. It seemed more like the rear brakes failed or locked up, or the rear suspension collapsed. And it's believed that if it was a suspension failure, it was due to contact with a GT car, though I don't get LMS coverage where I live aside from various forums and press releases.

Any one have anymore info on what broke on the LC70?

Initial word was that is was a massive brake lockup caused by a failure of some sort.

After looking over the footage a few times, it was definitely not a wing failure. The wing was still on until the rear of the car hit the ground after the car went into the air.

It looks to me like a suspension collapse.