And no, it’s not about the bloody coronavirus though those numbers are horrific as well as heading in the wrong direction.
137mph. 53 G’s.
That’s what the telemetry is saying Romain Grosjean’s car was experiencing right at the point of impact with the safety barrier that the cockpit ended up slicing through to the other side.
By comparison, astronauts riding the Saturn V would experience 4 G’s and the Shuttles would routinely max at 3 G’s. The Expedition 16 Soyuz experienced 8 G’s on re-entry before landing well away from their planned landing site.
Romain experienced almost 7 times that when he blasted through the barrier and in spite of the force of impact and the fire lived to tell of it (and now extol the virtues of the halo!).
Yikes!