There are times when aerodynamics actually become the enemy of a racer…event in a car that relies heavily on them. Case in point is this video which was taken at the awesome Spa course in Belgium over the weekend. GP3 driver Konstantin Tereshchenko was the guy who went from race car driver to pilot in an instant after losing the handle on his car and sliding across the grass and then contacting the curbing that lines the course. We’re thinking that the amazingly long and shockingly high flight he took was even more of a surprise to him than it was even to us.
After all, he was probably cursing his luck to be sliding across the grass like some sort of unguided missile and thinking that he’d hit the curbing and then slide across the track before having to make a charge back into the fray. Unfortunately for Tereshchenko the fates had other plans. Because this video is shot in slow motion we don’t have a good sense at how fast he was traveling across the grass but apparently it was WAY faster than we thought because when the car hits the relatively tame curbing it takes flight…alot.
The car’s aerodynamic belly produces a near magical amount of lift when the air gets under it and Tereshchenko is along for the ride. It looks like the car is at least 20 feet in the air and it travels a great distance before crashing back to Earth and bursting into flames. We have seen cars take flight going forward, we have seen cars take flight sliding backwards but we have never seen one take flight sliding sideways like this one does. Amazingly we see Tereshchenko emerge from the car under his own power by the end of the clip. This was one heck of a ride.
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE THIS GP3 CAR LITERALLY FLY AFTER HITTING THE CURBING ON THE TRACK SIDEWAYS – AMAZING
