Photo: MotoGP.com
Dangerous as MotoGP riding is for a job, this sport is nowadays much safer with the introduction of personal airbags. After Marquez crashing at Mugello at high speed, here's Alpinestars releasing the crash data for the reigning champion Jorge Lorenzo, coming off his bike at 238 km/h in Assen (148 mph) in FP2 last week.
Lorenzo was riding with slicks on a partially wet track and came a bit too wide in a corner. His bike lost grip as the wheels touched the painted white exterior line of the track and became uncontrollable.
Lorenzo was launched into the air in a violent highside and landed on his left hand first, which caused him a broken collarbone. Looking at the graphs recorded by the Alpinestars in-suit computer, the airbag deployed well before the actual crash happened.
The first spikes which triggered the airbag indicated the suit's CPU that the bike was out of control and warned about an imminent crash. 0.22 seconds later the airbag was inflated and 0.605 seconds after full inflation, Lorenzo hit the Assen track.
Other shoulder and torso impacts were also recorded, but the Alpinestars airbag suit did its job admirably. And since Lorenzo is a man of steel, we saw him racing at Assen on Saturday and finishing the 5th, broken collarbone operated some 36 hours previously.
Lorenzo was launched into the air in a violent highside and landed on his left hand first, which caused him a broken collarbone. Looking at the graphs recorded by the Alpinestars in-suit computer, the airbag deployed well before the actual crash happened.
The first spikes which triggered the airbag indicated the suit's CPU that the bike was out of control and warned about an imminent crash. 0.22 seconds later the airbag was inflated and 0.605 seconds after full inflation, Lorenzo hit the Assen track.
Other shoulder and torso impacts were also recorded, but the Alpinestars airbag suit did its job admirably. And since Lorenzo is a man of steel, we saw him racing at Assen on Saturday and finishing the 5th, broken collarbone operated some 36 hours previously.
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