F1 crashes increased have increased 700% in 4 years

[Viktory]

http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/sport/story/0,2789,1040409,00.html

Sorry it's in Swedish but it basically says that crashes in F1 (two or more cars colliding with each other a'la Wurz and DC in Australia) have increased by 700 % in 4 years. It gives some facts (that I haven't checked) that in 2003 there were two collisions, and this year already two (I guess Ant and Sutil the other) and last year 16 collisions. The reason: cars are more evenly matched and turbulence behind cars make it hard to use slipstream, thus they dive for the inside.

What's your opinion on this? Is it just the media exaggerating? 700 % increase doesn't sound feasable, I haven't really experienced any huge increase in collisions the last few years, maybe you that have followed the sport longer can give your input.

[Norwegian Blue]

Hmm not convinced. There were 2 collisions in the Malaysian race alone. And at least one in the Brazilian race and in the Spanish race....

And i must be bored :D

[tinchote]

:down: It sounds like bollocks to me. There have been times in F1 where almost every race had to be started twice because of the pile up at the first turn. Maybe there were few collisions in 03 (too lazy to check), but that doesn't mean that there were no collisions before.

[andreag]

How do they handle Spa 1998 on this curious statistics?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbViNtQJPqQ

[cos]

A quick check of f1-facts.com for the number of incidents flagged as "collision" reveals the following:


2003 - 14[/*:m:3uqutn9f]
2004 - 31[/*:m:3uqutn9f]
2005 -27[/*:m:3uqutn9f]
2006 - 22[/*:m:3uqutn9f]

I haven't checked each individual incident, and there may be a few minor instances of two cars making contact, but to claim an increase of 700%??

[jso1985]

2003 didn't had Sato on the drivers line-up :D

[POS_Maggott]

Okay, well... if they were counting from 2003 onwards, then there would have been around 98 "crashes" per season.