Former FIA president Max Mosley believes that Fernando Alonso would not have survived his horror crash in Sunday's Australian Grand Prix 15 years ago.
Alonso crashed out at 200 mph after running over the back of Esteban Gutierrez's Haas car, with the impact destroying his McLaren chassis and Honda power unit.
Remarkably, Alonso was able to walk away from the accident unharmed, and said that he felt "happy to be alive".
Speaking to The Telegraph, Mosley said that he thinks Alonso's crash would have been fatal in the past, proving how far safety standards in Formula 1 have come.
"I don’t think he would have," Mosley said when asked if Alonso would have survived the crash 15 or 20 years ago.
"You wouldn’t know for sure without a detailed analysis but generally speaking those sorts of accidents resulted in serious injury or death. Happily that seems to have stopped now.
"There are still freak accidents, like Jules [Bianchi’s], but those sort of serious racing accidents, you do expect the driver to walk away. That wouldn’t have been the case 20 years ago."
Mosley was instrumental in improving safety in F1 during his tenure as FIA president, working closely with Dr. Sid Watkins in the wake of Ayrton Senna's death in 1994 to try and prevent any future fatalities.
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