Rob Smedley offers emotional insight into Felipe Massa’s Hungary crash

Rob Smedley, the former race engineer to Felipe Massa, offered a detailed and emotional insight into the Brazilian’s life-threatening incident at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix.

Massa required successful life-saving surgery, while Smedley was left questioning whether he wanted to carry on in Formula 1.

Rob Smedley gives detailed insight into Felipe Massa crash

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The terrible incident in question happened during qualifying, with “total confusion” enveloping Ferrari in the moments after the incident as “awful guttural moaning” was heard on Massa’s team radio after initial silence.

Smedley, appearing on the High Performance Racing podcast, recalled the traumatic experience.

“For me, the team, in terms of operations, had taken another little notch upwards from 2008. He’d taken another little notch upwards from 2008,” Smedley began in reference to Ferrari and Massa. “He was consistently performing and performing really well.

“I think that was a race definitely which suited the car, and I thought that we would probably get a decent qualifying out of it. Even though the car was awful in real terms, he was always inside the top 10 in qualifying.

“He just started the lap. He’s going up the hill to Turn 5. I see him start to slow down. It’s not an accident. It’s slowing down, and I’m like, the engine’s broken or gearbox is broken. It’s a classic the car just coming to a stop, but a little bit faster.

“So I’m looking, and as he’s slowing down, I jump on the radio and go, ‘Mate. What’s happened?’ There’s no response. So then I immediately think he’s p*ssed off. He doesn’t want to talk. He’s in the middle of qualifying. Gearbox is broke. Engine is broke. Something like that. Doesn’t want to talk.

“Then I see him come to an abrupt halt. The line goes down. So then I’m like, ‘Oh, he’s crashed. Actually, he wasn’t just slowing the car down, now he’s crashed.’ But he’s slowing down, then he crashes.

“I’m like, ‘Aright, this is weird.’ ‘What happened?’ No response.

“Then I’m asking the guys back in the garage. I’m saying, ‘What’s happened here?’ And one of them says to me, ‘Well, going up the hill, he’s started to press the brake and started to press the accelerator at the same time, but he’s like hard down on the brake and the accelerator.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, this is weird.’

“Now this is a completely new situation. You’re not understanding anything.

“Then it shows the in-car camera of him. It flashes to that. Still haven’t heard from him, and it shows the in-car camera. He’s got his hands on the wheel, but he starts to veer over to the left-hand side of the road. Then he goes over the kerbs. Then he goes from one side of the track to the other, bounces across the gravel into the tyre wall.

“I’m like, ‘He’s just driven it into the wall.’ His hands are still on the wheel, which is really weird to watch anyway. When you see a driver going into the wall, you’ll always see at the very last minute they’ll take their hands off.

“So we’re still in this state where we’ve got no idea what’s going on. Total confusion. Confusion from the garage, confusion from me. Nobody knows what’s going on.

“At that point, his radio opens, and there was this like awful, guttural moaning. Somebody in a lot of pain, like a lot of pain.

“I think he’s come to, he’s been fumbling around, and somehow, just out of instinct, he has pressed that button, and he’s opened it. He wasn’t saying anything. There’s just an awful guttural moaning. There was this sudden realisation that this is not normal.”

Smedley revealed that he turned Massa’s radio off at this point, to protect the driver and the Ferrari team who could hear this.

Minutes later, Flavio Briatore, the Renault team boss at the time, came along the pit wall to Ferrari with a still image. Ferrari’s first thought was that a bird had struck Massa’s helmet.

“Then it started emerging that maybe something had come off Ruben’s car,” Smedley continued.

“Actually, it was the third spring off the rear suspension, 800 grams, a kilogram, something like that.

“He got taken to the medical centre. They sedated him. They give him a tracheotomy, and they airlifted him out.”

Smedley went to the hospital where Massa was being operated on.

“There’s a military hospital in Budapest, and it has some of the world’s leading technology and doctors for head trauma, but on that Saturday night, it was, he’s in theatre, and, ‘We don’t really know whether he’s going to make it.'”

Growing emotional as he recalled this traumatic experience, Smedley took a brief pause to collect himself before continuing.

Massa was placed in an induced coma. By Sunday night, he was “a lot more stable,” though his situation remained “touch and go.”

Smedley returned to the Hungaroring on Grand Prix Sunday to “support the team,” even though he acknowledges that he probably should not have been there.

“I wasn’t very present.”

Smedley revealed that Ferrari flew him back out to Budapest the following weekend as Massa emerged from the coma and began to recover.

He continued: “It was quite shocking to the point that it was funny, because his head was literally about twice the size of what it normally would be, and it was all black and blue, literally his whole head was black and blue.

“He first started talking Portuguese to me. Then he didn’t know who I was. Then he thought he drove for McLaren.

“Then when he worked out who I was and who he drove for, he kept saying to me, ‘Give Stefano [Domenicali] a ring and tell him I’ll be back in the car next week. I can come testing on Monday. I’m feeling a lot better now.'”

Smedley confirmed that the incident made him question whether he wanted to carry on in Formula 1. He made Ferrari aware of his considerations.

He ultimately decided to carry on, and was glad that he did as he “thoroughly enjoyed” the remainder of his time in Formula 1.

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Smedley continued as Massa’s race engineer until joining Williams in 2014, where he took on the position of head of vehicle performance.

Massa missed the remainder of the 2009 season, before returning to action with Ferrari from the start of 2010.

He too switched to Williams in 2014 before making his final Grand Prix start at the 2017 Abu Dhabi GP.

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