F1: Lucky Escape For TV Cameraman

Formula 1

F1: Lucky Escape For TV Cameraman

A television camera fought an F1 tire Friday and the tire won...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted April 16, 2010 Shanghai (CHN)

The Toro Rosso crew began repairing the damaged car of Sebastian Buemi as soon as it was brought back to the paddock. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

A TV cameraman had a lucky escape when his camera was struck by one of the wheels that came off Sebastien Buemi’s car in Friday morning practice in Shanghai.

Buemi’s Toro Rosso suffered a front upright failure under a heavy braking load, which caused a catastrophic suspension failure and sent both front wheels flying off the car.

One wheel went through a gap in the debris fencing for the camera. Its operator was focusing on the crashing car, and thus didn’t see the wheel that struck his machine before flying into the spectator area. The second wheel bounced clean over the spectators and ended up in a stream on the other side of the earth banking.

Toro Rosso had introduced a new upright design for this race, and has reverted to the earlier version for the rest of the weekend.

Adam Cooper notched up his 25th season as a racing journalist in 2009. Born in London, England, he saw his first F1 race at age 10 in 1976. He began freelancing for Autosport magazine in 1985 and was on the fulltime staff from 1987-92. He then went freelance again, initially spending two years in Japan before following the 1994 Champcar series from a base in Indianapolis. He has not missed a Grand Prix since Suzuka ‘94, a run that has extended to Abu Dhabi ’09. Adam has written books about Eddie Irvine, Piers Courage and Michael Schumacher and hosts a race preview show on Sirius XM. He has written about F1 for SPEEDtv.com since 2005. Check out Adam's Blog or follow him on Twitter

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