FIA tests fighter-jet canopy for Formula 1

If I remember a recent lecture held here by the boss of Audi Sport correctly, the Le Mans closed cockpits only have aerodynamic purposes, their strength isn't very high.



(that guy has a R8 as a company car, btw... and he would have prefered a Diesel in it because he managed to burn through 1.5 tanks full of fuel on the 400km from Ingolstadt )

 

I don't think so. The side sills of the cockpit are very important for the driver's wellbeing in case of a crash. You wouldn't be able to replace that with a transparent material.

 

I was wrong. It was a Brabham.

http://www.canvasstorehouse.com/formula_one_world_championship/print/2000791.html

And that was the precursor of Kimi Raikkonen´s ice cream too.

 

I would be willing to bet in one of todays cars he would still be here.
My point being that progression of safety equipment and standards have moved the sport greatly.
A canopy is jut one more step and a significant one.

 

LighyGuy,

You can't say this. When Gilles died carbonfibre was not invented and the car disintegrated around him. Also with Kubica's huge crash at Montreal in the end a lot of luck was involved with him not getting injured.

We need to move passed the emotional shock of the possible death of a driver and be realistic. Something like 1 million people die every day, some die from old age and some die from unfortunate accidents. We CANNOT prevent every single accident in this world.

Recently my families very best friend, a wonderful woman, lost her battle with cancer and left us all at only 49 years old. One of the most emotional funerals I've ever been too, but the most important point we took away from her funeral was that she had really LIVED her life and in those 49 years she had packed in so much that it was amazing.

My point: Making motorsport over safe DOES detract from the sport. Look at how Lewis Hamilton (and all saloon car drivers) use their car as a weapon and think passing another car is a physical contest. That simply would not happen in the 60's because you WOULD hurt the other driver or yourself.

Thus like my families best friend we should be concentrating on the quality of life/racing not trying to solve the 0.0000000000001% accident. We do not FORCE drivers to take part, it is completely voluntary.

The ultimate solution to motorsport being too dangerous is simple: BAN IT, otherwise accept that death is part of life.
Pete

 

Well said man, well said.

 

Ditto.

F1 without risk is not electrifying.

 

You seem to be forgetting that its not only the Drivers who are at risk. These days track-side fans, personnel and marshal's may be even more exposed to danger then the drivers themselves (the last 2 fatalities due to F1 racing have been marshals, Monza 2000 and Albert park 2001) .

Would you feel the same if a similar situation to what happened to Massa happens again. A driver is unconscious due to being struck on the helmet, his car veers off at 180mph with the throttle still pinned, becomes airborne then finds its way into a populated viewing position, which may include young kids, who have not had the chance to live a "high quality" life?

I going to take a guess that you have never witnessed fatal Motorsport accidents first hand.

 

True.

Again people die everyday, and it is sad. We have children's playgrounds now that are being closed because the risk is too high, pathetic. Do we really want to over control all aspects of our lives that there is no quality left?

Motor racing is a gladiator sport, remove that element and you might as well drive the cars remotely from a padded room.
Pete
BTW: My sister died as a passenger in a car accident ... and a motorcycle colleague killed himself on his m/c. Should we ban all cars? ... oh and I still ride a m/c, often to work and back.

Oh and my father broke his neck racing a car (coincidentally a single seater) while my mother was pregnant with me. He spent months in hospital while I was born ... we were lucky, but he still raced cars and life still goes on.

 

Your right, people die everyday, but do people need to die needlessly due to taking part in, spectating or working at an F1 event, when it could be avoidable? Of course not.

We have come a very long way since Jackie Stewart's courage was constantly brought into question because of his outspokenness and campaigning in favor of greater safety. Stewart lost 54 fellow racers during his career, but people back then were saying the same things as you are now.

Every single accident is different, so taking preventive steps for every possible outcome is virtually impossible. But i believe we should always learn from the past, and if its in our powers to prevent things, we should always take actions and do our best to stop similar situations occurring again.
Eventually, hopefully never, but since its happened so many times already in open cockpit racing (and the countless very close calls in recent memory, like Fisichella flipping over on top of the fencing at Monaco, Wurz nearly getting scythed by Coulthard's under tray In Melbourne, to name a few), logic says it's a matter of time before a driver is struck on the helmet again and maybe be killed, or kills others. We have solution's to the problem, and i feel as a sport we would be fools to not do something about it.

The reason play grounds and the like are being closed all over the western world is due to the ever increasing possibility's of serious legal action being taken against the park councils and committees if their is an accident.
I fear the same thing to could happen within F1 if there was a disaster, especially one involving spectators.
We could end up in a situation where it would not be financially viable to even hold F1 races due to the expense of circuit and event insurance premiums.

Here is an interesting article written by Martin Brundle days after the death of Henry Surtees and Felipe Massa’s incident a the Hungaroring.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article6727505.ece

 

totally agree

 

Yes understand but here is where you and I will probably not agree. Legal action being taken against the park councils and committees is another example of blaming somebody else for your mistake.

The fault is with the parents of the child, NOT the park. We need to ensure young people as they grow up understand they are accountable for their actions and need to grow up and thus when they become parents they will be accountable for their childrens mistakes, not some other random person.

Now before you get excited, I have children, and yes my kids wear helmets when riding a bike when in a public place but when my son rides around the backyard I don't nag him constantly, I remind him he should be wearing his helmet and if he falls off and hurts his head it will be HIS fault. Yes tough, and yes of course I do not want him to get hurt, but constantly protecting and doing everything for your child is why we have the current spineless generation that run off to a lawyer when they make a mistake.

And this is where I believe when you purchase a ticket to spectate at a race meeting the ticket should refer you to a internet site (maybe) or on the back of it should list all the safety precautions taken and if you don't accept those YOU make the decision that it is not safe enough and do not take part as a spectator.

So yes we are aware of the efforts for safety but yet again the individual cannot blame others for their choice, ie. to watch a dangerous sport called motor racing. Again we as spectators can only expect the organisers to take all reasonable precautions, we cannot expect them to make it 100% safe. That is impossible.

My father used to be involved in organising racing events in New Zealand, but no longer does because of the people that have grown up blaming others for their mistakes. Saying that the case in NZ that got the lawyers involved was about 2 drunk people walking into an area of a track that was forbidden for spectators to be in. The marshals asked them to move and were told to "fnck off", and unfortunately they were run over by an old of control car. The marshals should have told the clerk of the course and the racing should have been red flagged immediately until those 2 people were removed. I imagine somebody was done for manslaughter, but should they have been, I don't know? Those 2 drunk people have to take some of the blame ... surely?
Pete

 

True, and I prefer F1 cars to stay open, but not avoiding a danger just because "cars don´t look good" maybe is a bit frivolous.

If I said that I don´t want to wear an helmet when riding the bike because it spoilts my 50$ hair cut, you´d probably think that I´m being snobbish.

 

Actually F1 is most favorite and wonderful. understand your opinion.

 

Not true. McLaren's John Barnard introduced the first carbon fiber monocoque in 1981 on the MP4/1. It is correct to say that Villeneuve's 126 C2 had an aluminum honeycomb monocoque, and that he likely would have stood a greater chance of survival in a carbon fiber monocoque.

So, you're technically correct about Villeneuve's car, but your statement that carbon fiber "was not invented" in 1982 is incorrect. In fact, I believe that the 126 C2 did have C.F. bodywork.

 

Correct.

The tub was aluminum. But I'm not even sure Gilles would have survived had the tub been made out of CF as in Kubica's horror accident: The initial impact with the barrier was so immense, that I believe at that moment he broke his neck no matter what happened thereafter.

Just imagine the forces at work that are strong enough to rip the seatbelt bolts right out of the chassis!

Some accidents are not survivable. Nor should they be in my opinion. Danger and risk are elements of the sport and partly why these guys are paid millions each time they take a car to the limit.

 

Yes, it was an absolutely horrific crash, and quite possibly not survivable even with today's technology.

 

So which accidents in your opinion should not be survivable?

Would you feel it would have been fair if Kubica was killed in Canada? Or Massa was at the Hungaroring?
Because both of these accidents only a few short years ago would of almost definitely been fatal if it was not for the massive advancements and developments of safety technology in every aspect of the sport.

 

If you want zero risk then just ban F1.

I like racing and think the risk is part of it. IMHO F1 is safe enough as it is. Even if that means that some driver will be killed by a head trauma somewhere down the road.

Covering the cockpit will make it safer but take away from the proximity and excitement. Where will the drive to safety end? By running the cars via remote controls akin to the attack drones the airforce uses now instead of manned jets?

The FIA got more important things to worry about then improving safety.

 

^ Like profits, CYA on moronic rule changes mid-stream, and keeping Bernie happy.

 

Indeed

Also let's not forget that the FIA regulates more racing than F1. Kubica survived an insane accident almost without a scratch only to end (?) his career in a simple going wide accident in a rally. Where he hit the Armco was not installed properly causing the carnage.

How about looking more into things like that and leave F1's safety alone for a while?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

It is never going to be a zero risk sport, but that does not mean that the governing bodies should not explore new safety technologies. The possibility of a driver being decapitated by a car climbing over the top of him, or being struck by a wheel like young Surtees, on live TV in front of hundreds of millions of fans does not even bear thinking about.

Personally, I do not think that fully-enclosed polycarbonate aircraft canopies are the answer, as they would seem to present almost insurmountable emergency egress issues. However, if some kind of partial canopy can be developed that provides increased safety (i.e. head protection) while still allowing quick exit by the driver, in my opinion it would be foolish not to explore it.

 

Maybe you don't realise it Andreas, but F1 cars, equipment and circuits are constantly having to meet stricter FIA safety regulations and tests. Every season the minimal impact crash and structural tests are raised. So although you seem to think that F1 safety is static, it is in fact constantly evolving every year.

You also point out that F1 is not the only FIA Formula, and that "we" should focus on other things. But what you also don't seem to realise is that the advancements of safety in F1 over time always filters down to the lower Formulas, making the whole of auto-sport safer. Due to F1 having the biggest exposure, the biggest budgets, and the best engineers and designers, the safety evolution of car racing is almost entirely dependent on the advancements made in F1 in one way or an other.

Recent F2 cars (the Formula in which Henry Surtees lost his life due to a helmet strike) are designed and built to F1 safety standards but with much lower speeds. The cars are fitted with the same wheel tethers as the F1 cars. They have passed severe FIA impact tests on front, rear, and side, they have head protection to the back and the side and emergency seat removal systems from the cockpit safety cell.

I'm have been a keen follower of the FIA World Rally Championship for a long time. And I know that the FIA are just as active in making WRC safe as they are in F1.

Kubica's rally accident was not in an FIA event, but i can promise you that the organisers of the event (and other events) have learned from the mistakes, and although Kubica's accident was seen as a freak one, the organisers will be doing everything in its means to not allow the same thing to happen again in the future. And F1 should be doing the same thing when ever flaws are uncovered.

 

Sennas death and Massas spring accident were freak accidents. The super rare exception to the rule. Do we want to abandon one of the key principles of F1 to cover against something extremely rare? And our solution might not even be good enough or cause other issues (egress).

Kubica in Montreal was a more typical worst case and the monocoque did it's job.

 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e87HIlOIYFA[/ame]