Change in the rules: All cars built like Mack trucks and can not exceed 55 mph.
+1. Brawn Gp should be banned from the next GP or the rest of the season ... seriously. Renault have been slapped over the wrist why not Brawn? Pete
54 mph ... no ... 35 mph ... heck lets just park them and let the public decide which one wins. I'm going to take some flak from this, but F1 (and other forms of motorsport) is/are already too safe. Back in the old days cars were unsafe and thus the drivers did not bump and crash into each other when attempting to pass, thus we did not need a rule maker to decide whether it was a racing incident or not, because bumping somebody off to pass was a rare thing. Nowadays saloon car drivers in particular think punting the guy in front off is how you make a pass, and witness how way too many first corner incidents end up with the rule makers having to decide if it was just a racing incident or otherwise. Racing is suffering because of this ... I say we need to stop making the cars over safe and remind drivers (and mechanics) that racing is indeed dangerous and drive (and work on the cars) thusly. Pete
Before we get too negative -- and before we get into a flame war -- let's focus on the purpose of this thread .... to see if there are any *good* ways that such situations could be avoided. Yes, racing is dangerous, and always will be. But that doesn't mean you don't look for ways to improve safety. Looking doesn't mean you'll find a good solution, but still you look. That's the way an engineering team works: someone comes up with something that sounds good, and others shoot it full of holes. If you're lucky, someone comes up with something that doesn't get torn down. So far, we've touched on some of the "obvious" ideas: canopies, roll cages, armored helmets, etc. All have issues. Any "outside the box" notions?
How about a force field produced using plasma technology that eminated from a small plutonium reactor connected to the Kers system.. it only gets activeated once the car leaves the track at a speed greater than 60 mph? so when the car is going to hit something it will be magnetically stopped and drive not hurt... now everybody poke all the holes you want. Oh yes, it has to last for 6 races, and can only cost $12.87 per kilo and is restricted to taking up no more than 8.76523909% of the space of the car as it is referenced by a cross section of the vertical plane of the forward movement of the vehicle.
All safety systems involve compromise - a specific example is the size of hte helmet view port. If it were smaller it may have enabled that part of the helmet to be stronger... but at the cost of visibility (which is already extremely restricted). A closed cabin would also have prevented the impact but would introduce other problems (visibility in rain/emergency egress/etc). I'm with PSk - F1 is very safe for what it is. A driver has just had an 800g lump of steel hit his head at 200+km/h and he is recovering in hospital (for which we are all thankful!!!)! That in itself is staggering and a tribute to the engineering that has gone into the helmet.
Hmm. Since the serious injury in this case may have been from the tire barrier impact, you might be onto something: A linear magnetic "run off" area? A series of electromagnets, like the ones mag-lev trains use for propulsion, to slow a car more gradually than hitting tires. The computer controls would have to sense the car leaving the track, and then operate the right magnets in sequence to slow the car. There'd also have to be sufficient magnetic material in the car to act upon -- either steel or mu-metal in the frame ... ... or a KERS powered "stator" electromagnet triggered by the car leaving the course limits. (Would also reduce "cutting corners" if doing so drained your KERS.) Leaving one "row" of run-off magnets (lining the track) running all the time might also attract metallic debris -- like a loose steel spring -- away from the track. (But I think the wheels are non magnetic materials.) Of course, this might be just a tad complicated for tracks that can't even keep their timing & scoring operating. And it might play hob with the in-car telemetry. But it's not quite as silly as those foam "ping pong" ball ejector systems from the "Speed Racer" flick. (Brain storms, or just drizzle? ) (Good thing Webber got that steel rod out of his leg. ) (Hmm: with external power hooked up to an in-car stator, you could even use a mag-lev version to move a disabled car out of the way, without having to wait for a crane.)
You guys are on the slippery slope to banning motorsport. While I understand we should not have preventable injuries in this case we are talking freak accidents. The Brawn GP team should be fined with the resulting money raised going to providing fresh water to a town in third world country. If we are not careful this will be a bit like how childrens play grounds all over the world are being closed down because a child gets hurt and the lazy parents who were NOT doing their job sue the city council. Rediculous. The future looks bleak, where people live out overly safe lives but utterly BORING ones too. This modern trend is why modern cars snck and also why I now ride a motorcycle and why also when my kids fall over, from any form of playing (including push bikes) I offer them support but our attitude is to play it down and get back out there and continue playing. The parents that pick their child up and go running home for the special band aids are turning their kids into frightened people who will hide from risks and may never know a fulfiling life. I wish Massa well of course, but I am sure if you asked him he would like nothing to change because he wouldn't be out there if risks were not part of the game. Pete ps: My family is going to the snow this weekend ... and no we will not be sitting the kids down a listing all the possible dangers first ...
Sensors for 'seeing' incoming objects. You can then implement conditional (impermanent) solutions for preventing an accident and minimizing its consequences. An example would be an outside the car air bag system, which should also be implemented in road cars, and a cocoon around the driver. For prevention and going off the track events such as Felipe's, the computer or an off track operator would be able to take over and stop the car safely, or at least minimize the impact. The track itself could have built in sensors that could alert of potential hazards, such as loose parts, fluids, etc, and be built of smart materials that could mitigate the risk, eg. by absorbing pools of fluids, preventing loose parts from bouncing around, etc. Despite purists' dislike, so called smart tech will obviously increase in F1, so that the risk factor and ultimately the driver himself are no longer necessities but luxuries. In such an increasingly managed environment, the smart tech will parallel the growing body of rules and regulations, so that eventually the inherent risk of racing will be dwarfed by the risks of (over) regulation and (over) engineering. This, of course, may already be observed.
Interesting. It'd take quite a tracking system, though. The on-board TV camera only got a couple of frames of the spring. You'd need an on-board tracking system that could detect the object *and* determine that it was really going to impact. You wouldn't want to block off a driver's visibility because of an object passing two meters to the left. If you could actually track incoming FOD, though, you might use a compressed air jet to deflect it. Rather than carry around compressed gas, maybe a computer controlled scoop could open (160 mph ram air) to provide deflection air. But getting a sensor system small enough to fit into the car and accurate enough to precisely track an object even the driver wouldn't see would be tricky. I saw replays on the Surtees incident, and I couldn't tell that tire would bounce that way. I didn't think it'd hit the driver until it did. Interesting notion, though. Certainly, in a manufacturers' series, the "smart tech" applicable to street cars will increase in racing cars. But taking the driver "out of the loop" has significant litigation and "legal responsibility" issues that have been stalling any such development on street cars. Nobody wants to build self driving cars for the street, because of the liability suits that would be filed in the event of any failure. So "driverless" race cars probably aren't in the cards any time soon.
So are you arguing for getting rid of HANS, safety belts, impact resistant fuel cells, helmets, roll cages, crumple zones, etc? The balance is to improve safety without impinging on the racing. But the "mission elements" of "makes" racing is not just a playground for drivers, but to improve the technology, too. Look at what racing brought to street car safety: crumple zones, seat belts, roll cages. Look what politicians brought to street car "safety": daytime headlights, "mouse track" belts, air bags that can sometimes *cause* injuries. I'd rather see what race engineers can come up with for vehicle safety (that doesn't take away from driving) than what politicians would impose on us, just because it makes a good "sound byte". (This is one reason why I stand mostly alone in the notion of having possible emissions standards for race cars. It attacks the notion that "green" equals "slow". Politicians don't care how boring a "green" car might be ---- only what expensive gizmos get built in his district.) (That's as much a problem with litigation law as with safety. It's using the "save the children" buttons to sell getting a quick buck.) (You can't fix that as long as most politicians are lawyers.) It's not so much that we've gone "overboard" on safety: it's that politicians are trying to "mandate" safety in order to get headlines, rather than trying to *integrate* safety. I was watching a re-run of "Fate is the Hunter", a while back, and it occurred to me that today's response to that fault wouldn't be to fix the panel, but to ban coffee in the cockpit. That's where we've gone wrong. Politicians and bureaucrats are getting their fingers into fields they don't understand without taking the time to get (unbiased) information on the subject. Take a case of an old concrete slab at the intersection of two asphalt roads: that's an inherently dangerous situation, having a sudden reduction in traction (along with the bump as you change surfaces) right at an intersection. But towns, faced with the choice of spending money to fix the problem or just lowering the speed limits (and installing traffic cameras), will almost always choose the revenue generating option. The quest for "safety" isn't the problem. It's the times it's used as an excuse to impose inappropriate "solutions" -- often which have no safety benefit at all. Or, in other words: Don't throw out safety belts because you dislike the mouse track. The point (IMO) of this thread is to put some brainpower into seeing if there might be a *good* improvement. Sometimes you have to actively look for a good solution before politicians impose a bad one, just to "do something".
Instead of reinventing the wheel here we need to take a look at what worked and what did not work in this accident. Worked : Advances in Helmet design. If the helmet was weighed more or did not flex Massa's brain would have suffered a more severe impact. HANS Device. Without the HANS Massa would be more severely injured or even killed from the impact to the tire wall. Side Bolster surround on cockpit. They may have played a part to deflecting the springs impact force and prevented Massa's head from being snapped sideways causing further injury. Tire wall. It stayed intact and stopped the car, how many tire walls have we seen that blew apart on impact. Did not work : The broken damper on Brawn GP car. Gravel trap run off area. How many times have we seen a car not get it's speed arrested. My suggestions: Fine tune the current safety systems. They did a great job for what was and 1 in a billion accident. Develop a sensor system to detect impacts to the drivers head. When the sensor reaches it threshold it will shut down the ECU and apply braking systems slightly to slow down the car. Develop a sensor that if the car has all 4 wheels off track more than 6' in a gravel trap area. An arresting feature drops from the underside of the car to help slow the car before impact with a tire wall.
My exact same thought. Massa got severly injured and Brawn gets nothing, while Renault has a 1 race ban. You cannot have a car with falling debris and do nothing. I like Brawn but IMO a severe sanction is in order. Were this sanctions (or lack of thereof) up to the FIA or race stewards?
Why should Brawn get banned? The unit in question that failed was a Sub Assembly, probbally suplied to Brawn GP as a complete assembly by their suspension supplier, They would have needed a Crystal Ball to know the unit would fail and cause this situation. As reported Its a freak happening!
Correct The track IIRC is a bumpy one Ross B and co will be feeling pretty bad about this I'm sure anyway. It's a freak accident..there will always be them the odds are small but thats racing. I mean you only had to look at Kubicas crash to realize how good these cars are. If Brawn got banned you might as well stop racing all the cars, and make sure all tracks are as smooth as a mill pond. A ridiculous statement. A wing mirror has fallen off race over.
Good point Steve, One main problem which has never been addressed is the damage Truck Racing had on some of our circuits in the 90's, the weight and braking force of the Heavy trucks changed some of our older tracks. on saftey grounds, IMO a certified F1 track should be of a certain standard, drivers and commentators (ex drivers) have cause to comment on them for being too bumpy in certain areas.
Here is just another useless thread. Nothing can be done about an accident like this. Racing is racing and guess what.......its dangerous.
No, dont like this... its not Brawn's fault... there was an accident, a fluke... how many races has this never occured, if you start penalizing for errors... then why even race? Racing is dangerous... stuff happens... I think Brawn should pay for Massa's treatment and make some philantropic donation to charity in lieu, but not get punnished.
Saw the thread on Renaults penalty and posted this there before I found this thread. "If safety were the real and true concern these car would have roll cages. I know this is going to be an unpopular comment. So be it. They wouldn't have to be tubes such as in sprint cars but slight aerodynamic carbon fibre spindles forming the structure. Think of all the drivers killed by blows to the head. Price, Surtees, and GV come to mind. Either by flying objects, usually tires, or by the car going under, along, or through a barrier. Lets not banter the word "safety" around and use it for an excuse to hand out penalties when the drivers head is exposed to direct hits. Hypocrisy" I have raced Formula cars a bit. The last car I purchased and raced, a Tube frame Formula Mazda, had a "Tall man" roll bar which extended higher than a normal cars. I looked exclusively at cars that had this mod and for safety reasons. If the car flipped it would give me those few extra precious inches to keep my head safe"er". In my last (and probably THE last race) a race accident caused another formula car to land directly on top of my car. I feel the tall cage contributed to my safety. Really. To say that racing is dangerous is true. But we build in safety to reduce the risk. Fuel cells, fire bottles, fire resistant suits, on and on..... None of these developments were there in the early days. Not to include roll cages would be simply using an Ostrich with its head in the sand point of view not to see the advantage of a roll cage. Would you want your son/daughter to be in a car with a cage or without one ? With or without seat belts ? Fire-proofing ? It really is that simple. F1 can be the start like they are in most all advancements in open wheel racing. Let the brightest racing engineers figure it out. The time has come.
Hold the fone. An upward air jet would increase downforce. A ram air downforce system is what the fixed wings were for. I wonder if we didn't see this kind of impact before now because turbulence from the multi-element front wings (before the push to reduce downforce) tended to deflect debris away from the cockpit. (Just a thought). But I have to disagree with both the extreme case sentiments: that it's useless to think about safety, and that we absolutely have to "do something". This is the time to examine the situation to see if there's some *reasonable* way to improve safety ... with the possibility that there might not be anything practical available at this moment. The compromise between "do nothing" and "do anything", is "do something *if* it helps". Most of the Internet was developed by a bunch of nerds floating silly ideas. This is just a brain-storming thread, making use of another bunch of nerds.
I still think that a Top Fuel dragster-style roll cage would add enough additional protection without severely affecting the performance of the driver or the appearance of the car. While it might not keep out all small objects, it would certainly keep the big ones off of the driver.
You can't get out of it quickly, plus in looks like s**# I saw one formula car with roll cage, ugly period. It was not easy for the driver to get in or out. Your field of vision is restricted now with out a cage. Let me ask you have you ever raced a Formula Car? You'd be surprise how well your protected, you can't make everything perfectly safe. Racing is a Risk always will be. I have a bunch of friends that still race Formula Cars and I know for a fact none of them would want a cage. I raced Formula Cars when they were more dangerous than they are now. The current cars are safer than you think!
