The Big Picture
The focus on motorsport in the last week has been on safety, not so much from Formula 1 directly however. Tragically this week Maria de Villota, former reserve driver for Marussia and daughter of former F1 driver Emilio de Villota, was found dead in her hotel room on Friday morning. The cause has been identified as long-term effects of the injuries she sustained in her accident at Duxford Aerodrome in July 2012. During a straight-line test for Marussia F1, she lost control and crashed into a truck, causing severe head injuries which resulted in the loss of her right eye. Since then, she has been involved in charity work and promoting female drivers in motorsport and had been cleared to drive again. Her death comes as a shock to the sport, may she rest in peace. On a less tragic but important note Dario Franchitti, four-time IndyCar champion and three-time Indy 500 winner, and cousin of Force India's Paul di Resta, was injured in a high-speed accident in Houston. He collided with former F1 driver Takuma Sato after he slid wide, and was catapulted over the rear wheel and up into the steel catch fencing around the track. The huge impact threw shrapnel into the crowd, along with the segment of fencing and a wheel, though luckily none of the spectators suffered more than minor injuries. Franchitti himself suffered a broken ankle and fractured spine, and underwent surgery this week. It is another accident so similar to that which killed Britain's Dan Wheldon in 2011, when he was launched at high-speed over other cars and into steel fencing lining the track. Safety needs to remain a focus in motorsport at all levels, and these incidents are another reminder of that.