If there’s anything to take away from this absolutely brutal crash in the European Formula 3 Championship last weekend, it’s that modern safety gear is entirely remarkable. Chinese driver Zhi Cong Li absolutely plowed young American Ryan Tveter at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, sending Li’s car at least 10 feet skyward. This one will make you ache to watch it and while the accident wasn’t fatal, Li suffered broken bones in his heels and four fractured vertebrae. He’ll need surgery for those injuries, but the good news is, of course, that he survived one of the most insane race car flights you’ll ever see.
The accident came in the closing stages of the weekend’s first race of three. Tveter ran wide through the esses at the track, spinning in the gravel trap and coming to rest back on the surface. His car unfortunately stalled right at the apex of the curve and the dust kicked up from his trip through the kitty litter completely shrouded the stopped car. Li would almost certainly have never seen Tveter’s stalled car and he smashed right into it at full chat. The spinning Tveter then collected Brazilian Pedro Piquet’s car. Race Control stopped the race immediately, throwing a red flag before all three cars had even come to a halt.
Tveter hobbled out of his car before collapsing at the marshal’s post; he was checked out at the hospital and released with severe bruising on his kneeds while Piquet checked out fine. For Li, it will be a long road to recovery and F3 being a development series for young drivers, that’s a huge shame for racing fans.
You can see the whole race below on the archived livestream of the Euro F3 broadcast. The accident happened in the race’s final 10 minutes, right around the 35:30 mark in the video.
