New F1 nose "submarining" in Melbourne collision?

The FIA has cocked it up on this front too

 

A little more speed and that diffuser would have straight up sliced Kobyashi's head. Few of the changes make much sense (armchair quarterback-wise). I've been watching F1 for some time and I can't really remember any major t-bone wrecks... or at least they've been overshadowed by the rear-ending as we see here. Wasn't that the impetus for the slope nose... safety for side impacts? Makes no sense.

Just add it to the list... fuel restricted racing, etc, etc, etc...

 

We knew that when the front of the cars appeared with that very appendage.

 

It doesn't help that the ebrakes didn't work all weekend on the Lotus and they let them race anyway.

 

'Cept, as you've been told before, he's not driving a Fauxtus!......

Cheers,
Ian

 

Dang

 

up his ass? that's where it usually is.

 

Another much needed chuckle! Thanks!

While that pic does indeed look very scary, I can't help thinking that's about the safest place for his head right there..... 'Protected' by a wheel on one side and a great big lump of metal on the other! .

I also thought the (relative) lack of damage to his car shown in the earlier pic was a testament to how strong these things are today.

Which is the 'bigger' danger - A guy getting his head torn off in a (admittedly very rare) side impact or running up someone's ass? I certainly don't claim to know the answer, but suspect 'submarining' is the lesser of two evils given a choice - The leading car will get punted into the air, and if required the roll hoop should do its thing. I think......

Cheers,
Ian

 

It doesn't surprise me considering that the FIA are run by a bunch of clueless people.

 

Honestly I think the submarining is a far bigger danger. 1) I think it happens the most and 2) if given a little more speed you'll have the rear of the lead car slide right up the body to the driver.

I was looking at the pics of some of the cars and it seems some of them have an edge across the width of the car... perhaps its the floor pan or some sort of horizontal diffuser. Either way, that could run right up the body and probably clip someone's head right off given enough speed. I've watched that crash several times Massa's car shot up in the air and landed on the front the assembly of the Koby's car. Either Koby's car continued driving under Massas's or Massa road up Koby's, the results are the same. It looked like the most dangerous car parts of Massa's car were waaaaaaaayyy too close to Koby's head. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it appeared to me and certainly echoed what Newey and others' fears were about the sloped nose.

I'm sure there had to be testing and all kinds of simulations before they made that decision. I'm curious how that was missed or if, in the end, the chances of something that catastrophic just isn't all that plausable. It just doesn't seem worth the risk.

 

It seems like the best solution would be a nose lower than 2013 but higher than 2014. A standardised height for impact structures all around the car would be the best solution. If front, side, and rear crash structures were all the same height then there wouldn't be either submarining or launching.

All the best,
Andrew.

 

Lets see:
A) nose too high (like last year), cars fly over each other and land on each other (Alonso SPA 2012)
B) nost too low (like this year), cars fly under each other.

Both are unacceptable.

 

C) Racing is dangerous and people need to deal with it

 

Bingo.

And the pic above of Kobayashi makes the wheel seem closer to his head than it actually is. Look at the other angles of the crash - it really doesn't come that close and overall he was in a very safe situation through the whole event.

There are consequences for consistently crashing into cars and immovable objects on the track through your entire career... He's extremely lucky to not be racing pre-1994...

 

Besides Ralf Schumacher-Rubens Barrichello incident, and Webber-Trulli incident, i don't recall any other incident that the cars flew over each other. This means the designs were good, no?

 

How about Weber and his high flying back flip?

 

Cars flipping over each other can also be attributed to wheels touching, it's not always about the nose.

 

Yeah, and the Indy Car series has tried to prevent this with that ugly rear guard behind the rear wheels.

 

and it didn't work.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QjA8k5WeGk]DARIO FRANCHITTI Crash Houston Grand Prix IndyCar 2013 Franchitti involved in horror IndyCar crash - YouTube[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWCRCP6GO44]Marco Andretti + Rahal Big Airbourne Crash Long Beach 2012 IndyCar - YouTube[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyAAcgnIKBA]AJ Allmendinger Hard Crash 2013 IndyCar Detroit Race 1 - YouTube[/ame]

 

In karting we had rear plastic bumpers made mandatory like 3-4 years ago along the same idea. Try to prevent one kart from popcorning another when the wheels touch.

I still wish we'd go back to normal bumpers in karting. And I still think the change in Indy is terrible. I sometimes wonder if they're trying to make their series fail akin to shorting a stock.

 

The stupid farings on Indy cars were a knee jerk reaction to Dan Wheldon's death. Nevermind the fact that the cars were in a tight pack of 30 doing 230+ on a 1.5 mile oval. That was the problem, not the exposed wheels.

 

Yeap. I highlighted that in my initial post, the webber-trulli incident. Or was it Heikki, not Trulli?

My point is, no matter what you do with the designs, i think it's almost impossible to prevent accidents like that. So, why make the cars look super ugly in the designs then?

The late 80s and early 90s Mclaren looked stunning. So did the F2001-F248