Sergio Perez was released from hospital in Monaco today after being kept in for observation for two nights.
Meanwhile sources have confirmed to this blog that the FIA accident data recorder on the Sauber logged a lateral impact of 80G, believed to be the highest seen in F1 since the system was introduced. His helmet showed no external markings, while the headrest foam did its job.
“I feel okay,” said Perez. “I have little bit of pain in my leg and in my neck, but this comes from muscles and is nothing to worry about. On Sunday I still felt a bit dizzy, but that is all. Thank God I’m healthy and I’m looking forward to being back in the car soon.
“They treated me very well in the hospital. I want to thank the staff for this, and also want to thank everyone else who was worrying about me – the people from the team who came to see me and other visitors as well.
“My family has also been with me. I want to say thank you for all the messages I received. I’m very grateful for all the support and feel sorry for not having replied to all of the messages. There were so many and my phone very quickly ran out of battery.”
Perez says he has only hazy memories of what happened.
“I remember how I started Q3 and I also remember some of the accident. For the time being I am missing some memories about what happened after the first impact and the rescue procedures. I don’t really know what caused the accident. My race engineer told me there was no problem with the car. I can only guess that I might have been a bit offline or braked on a bump.”
Perez expects to be driving in Canada, but first he will have to be passed fit by the FIA.
Adam Cooper's F1 Blog 
80 g is a huge impact, although the forces were dissipated relatively quickly, in part due to the car and in part credit must be given to the barrier. Indy car drivers have survived 100 g accidents (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force), but anything over 50 g could easily be fatal. A more closer look at preventing 50 g + accidents must be looked into. I suspect a better design of barrier may be needed as clearly the barrier stopped the car rather than brought it to a gentle stop.
Were tyre barriers that bad? Has barrier design kept up with car design & speeds?
Could the armco be pushed back further at Monaco to allow more of a ‘cushioning’ temporary barriers to be put in place?
If Ecclestone wants more street circuits these questions surely need answering.
Remember that the 80g is not the G-force he sustained, merely what the chassis sustained. The Foam padding around the cockpit, and inside the helmet should protect him from a good portion of those gs. Also, I believe Kubica’s famed Canada crash was something like 168g.
In the BBC coverage of the crash at 4seconds and 30seconds Perez’s rear right hand wheel looks to be loose a fraction of a second before the back of the car kicks out.
This hasn’t been mentioned in the media although and my flatmate noticed it not me. It has also been noted by a couple of twitter users. Is this just a visual trick from the low quality TV feed or is that indeed a loose wheel/suspension failure? I would be suprised if his engineers didn’t pick up on it.
Link to Video (BBC)
I was pretty sure that Kubicas Canada crash was 130 g????? All I can find says 75g though
Maybe we’ve all become a bit blasé about lateral impact – the soft nature of the barrier made me wonder why Perez didn’t jump out pretty quickly, other than being impeded like Luciano Burti at Spa all those years ago. It was only when they winched the Sauber upwards that you saw the severity of the impact.
80G is an enormous accident – not quite on a par with David Purley’s (estimated) 180G shunt – but still extremely frightening.