When Marussia´s Spanish test driver Maria de Villota crashed her car during the start of a two-day testing session at Duxford Airfield, it was a simple mistake. This is expected as the claim of the Marussia team, who is tipped to reveal a final conclusion of the events in a few days.
The German publication Auto Motor und Sport, made a report on the accident and calculated angles and trajectory. According to them, de Villota’s crash happened because de Villota struggled to find the clutch lever ‘as the steering wheel was not in the normal 9 and 3 o’clock position’. This is apparently due to the fact that from the pit exit to the makeshift pit garage, a couple of tents erected, is curved. De Villota forgot to push the neutral button, and the combination of this, cold tyres and cold brakes, she was hurled forward into the back of a team truck´s loading ramp. Or ‘doing the wrong thing at the wrong time’, as Auto Motor Und Sport says.
Marussia has already ruled out a failure to the car, and an external investigation is now underway, thought this is expected to take a long time before a final conclusion is found. The team´s conclusion is expected in a few days, and in this we will receive details about what caused the “chain of unfortunate circumstances and mistakes”.
Maria de Villota spend 17 days at the Addenbrooke´s Hospital before being released to a local Spanish hospital, from which she has been released. De Villota sustained skull fracture and also had her right eye surgical removed. She is recovering at her home, with friends and family.
