Carbon disc 'exploded' at Ferrari track session

Yikes! Glad you are okay.

 

WOW! So sorry to hear it. This has got to be a first on the 599 thread.

 

I'd say that is a very unusual failure. Are these the original rotors and if not when were they replaced?

My guess as unlikely as this may seem, the rotors were hot and somehow an object hit the rotor which caused it to shatter. Would be interesting to know the % of wear on the other side rotor.

Undoubtedly a very scary experience!

 

To the OP, you have my sympathy and I'm glad you came through it one piece. I was reminded right away of this....

 

How many years old was the rotor?

 

Thank you for sharing!
Can you describe what happend and how you relacted the moment the disc exploded?
Seems like you have good skills and some luck.

It would be great if you could post a picture of the other rear brake disc.

 

Any idea how many sets of brake pads the car has had in its life?

 

On my friends 488 they weighed the carbon rotors to check for replacement
He had to replace 2 rear rotors after only 100,000 kilometres
They showed no signs of wear



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That was the originally specified say to check the rotors. Noone did that, so they changed to a thickness measurement and visual inspection. The maximum permitted wear is 0.5mm, measured at the innermost track of the brake pad contact surface (most wear occurs there). There is also a special tool to check surface roughness but again, most outside of a dealer do not have this tool. In addition to the two above they measure planarity (how flat the surface is) and parallelism between the surfaces (inner to outer surface of the disc).

I suspect few cars get a proper, detailed inspection but it sounds like the OP has had the appropriate inspections. IE: the inspection is not foolproof.

 

I am sorry to read this.

How many laps had you done on the session before the cool down lap?

Let’s not forget that these are big cars and the brakes really labour to pull such a car up.

The heat soak would have been quite extraordinary which is no doubt the main reason this would have happened. Also, a small rock may have lodged itself in one of the cross drilled vents which could have potentially cause a tearing motion.

I hope that you get this sorted out soon!


May the Horse be with you

 

Yup, my first thought was FOD damage between the caliper and rotor. Have had that happen on steel brakes and it results in a horrible squealing noise as the stone grinds down. On a CCM rotor, it likely would be carving a groove.

 

That's scary... also strange a rear rotor failed first, the front ones are submitted to much more stress (although they are larger, which helps dissipate heat).
I would suspect a manufacturing defect, even though to me the rotors are pretty old for a car sometimes used on track (on my 599 rotors were replaced after about 25,000 km IIRC).
I also guess it's less likely to happen on the road, since even spirited driving is very far from the intensity of track driving.