JUNE 1, 2002

Heidfeld's lucky escape

NICK HEIDFELD was driving a Sauber in the Silverstone test on Thursday when he had a bird hit his helmet as he was going through the high-speed Bridge Bend. Fortunately the German emerged unhurt from the incident but was rather destabilized by what had happened. The same happened to Jenson Button in his debut race in Australia in 2000.

With modern helmets the danger of birds has been reduced. In 1960 British rising star Alan Stacey was killed when he was hit in the face by a bird while running at high speed on the Masta Straight on the old Spa circuit in Belgium.

A word of warning for the F1 drivers: next weekend they have to keep an eye on the famous beaver-like creatures than have a tendency to run across the track in Montreal.