F1: Massa in serious condition after freak incident

The incident was over in a matter of seconds, the damage done in less than the blink of an eye. A spring fell off the back of a BrawnGP car driven by Rubens Barrichello as the cars slowed down after their final runs in the second session of qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday.

The spring bounced on the track but instantly Rubens' team calmly told him over the radio that something had fallen off the back end. No drama, no fuss.

Slowing down behind him, having set a quick time in his resurgent Ferrari, Massa came upon the bouncing spring. His engine was droning not screaming, he had set the controls ready for pit entry. Massa was doing the things that all drivers do in readiness for the things they do when they prepare for the final run of the afternoon.

With controls more complex than those on many small aircraft, a Formula One cockpit is a very busy place to be and - once the flat out driving is over - there is even more to do within the car.

The bouncing spring - which some estimates say weighs as much as one kilogramme, although that has not been confirmed by Brawn - suddenly flashed by the camera above Massa's head. Even in slow motion, it is almost impossible to see. It is not clear whether he ran over it and it spat out from under a front wheel or whether it bounced up from contact with the front wing.

Whichever, there was a glancing blow with Massa's helmet.

Formula One drivers do not wear the helmets you and I wear: they don't even use the helmets you and I get approved by scrutineers at race meetings. Their helmets are much more advanced, and designed to deliver much higher protection levels than ours. So - except for something really freaky, nothing bad is going to happen, right?

Wrong: it's not clear whether Massa even saw the object coming towards him: certainly there is no sudden lurch to the right suggesting that he tried to dodge his head out of its path. That lack of movement raises a question: did the HANS device prevent movement or did it make no difference? The footage suggest that it made no difference; that Massa didn't see it coming.

And he didn't feel it going, either. Unconscious, his subconscious braced for impact - and that meant his legs went out straight. His foot pressed down the throttle. Under full power but with no driver input, the car straight-lined a left-hand corner and headed across the gravel and speared into a multi-layer tyre wall.

As the car came to rest, a piece - ironically about the same size as that which had fallen from the Brawn - flew off the Ferrari. And the engine revved crazily.

In that horrible and / or pleasurable moment after a crash, there is a moment when one shakes one's head, wiggles one's toes and fingers, stretches one's back, stress-tests one's legs - and then, before anyone has time to notice that one is offering a silent prayer, there is a flurry of action.

Massa sat in the car, totally still. For several gut-wrenching seconds, the cameras focused on a yellow helmet, unmoving, in a crashed Formula One car.

The HANS device prevented his head slumping. It may yet be proved that it saved his life.

As the marshals first tried to pull the car free, then realised the engine was still running, they flicked the kill switch. Despite the noise all around, there was a feeling of eerie silence. Formula One is no stranger to big crashes - but these days its drivers are more likely to injure themselves playing tennis than in an accident at the track.

As Massa was lifted from the safety-tub of his Ferrari, his eyes were open but glazed. And it looked for all the world as if his helmet had done its job. The errant spring had torn away part of the left side of the shell, flipping up the left side of the visor.

Bloody scary: had the impact been two inches to Massa's right it would have hit the visor - by far the weakest part of the helmet with the terrifying prospect of it penetrating with extraordinary force. It's a prospect that no one will want to dwell on for long after the initial shudder down the spine. For debris on a race track is a fact of life.

But when Massa was in the ambulance - itself a trauma unit provided by Formula One - the helmet was removed. As he was transferred from the ambulance to the medical centre, one of the helicopters began to warm up. Less than 15 minutes after the accident, Massa had received local treatment and was airborne on his way to a specialist centre. The word from his team was that he was going for check ups. Some commentators expected him to take his place on the grid for Sunday's race but the more alert pointed out that if, as seemed likely, he had been knocked out or concussed, he would be forced - under Formula One rules - to take two weeks off. Some joked that he would be sitting up in the helicopter saying "I wasn't knocked out, I wasn't knocked out..." And they were right to joke. After all, it wasn't as if his condition was serious. Or so it seemed.

Yesterday, the medical director at the AEK Hospital where Massa is now in what appears to be something approaching a medically-induced coma told media that "we have to overcome this life-threatening condition,"

For as the story unfolded, the true extent of the damage started to become clearer: it was not just that the shell of the helmet was torn: impact damage had broken bones in his skull; there was bruising (for which read bleeding) in the brain. Despite the distance, Massa's family arrived from Monaco and Brazil within hours. Doctors woke him from his sleep so he could see them - including his wife with whom he recently made a delighted announcement that he will become a father in the close season.

Formula One has not seen a fatality since the awful weekend when both Roland Ratzenburger and Ayrton Senna were killed at Monza on 30 April and 1 May (respectively) 1994. Senna's yellow-helmeted head was still from the moment the car - or what was left of it - came to rest. It was the memory of that most famous of yellow helmets that made Massa's crash all-the-more horrible.

But bizarrely, British Formula 2 driver Henry Surtees was killed last weekend when a wheel broke loose from a competitor's car after a crash and bounced into his head. Surtees, too, ran into a barrier after the initial impact.

Just 24 hours after Massa's accident, a pit lane mistake by Fernando Alonso's crew during the race meant that a wheel was not fitted properly. First, the in-wheel aero-kit unscrewed itself and flew across the track, and then the wheel fell off, bouncing high into the air along the track. Fortunately, there were no other drivers nearby.

Massa will, probably, survive his injuries but whether he races again this season is doubtful. And there must even be a question mark over whether he will ever race again, at least at that level. Right now, no one knows how his brain will respond to treatment, whether the swelling can been contained. A CT scan has shown that the condition is as it would be expected to be after the treatment.

Everywhere at race circuits there are signs saying motor racing is dangerous. Massa is alive today because of the measures taken to make it less so. But freak accidents do happen.

This was one, and luckily not far worse.

Hopefully, Massa will be back in a car very soon. Although, with severe limitations on testing and the prospect of Alonso rumoured to be signed up for 2010, whether that's in a Ferrari remains to be seen.