If you can explain how this will save lives, by all means please do. At 200mph, **** can go very wrong.
Remenber Romain almost choping Alonso's head? Or Alonso vs Kimi in Austria? Now picture this and perhaps things would be safer.
Racing at 30mph or not at all would be safer still. To abandon the very DNA of f1, open wheels and open cockpit, to pander to the safety police would be pathetic. If the drivers were really passionate about canopy's and their safety they should go and race in WEC and live with less salaries, less sponsors and less public interest or retire altogether.
Let's not forget, that unless the F1/FIA solution is somewhat affordable, it will leave 90% (more?) of drivers in the world unprotected. We can't have some insanely complicated canopy or deflection structure. It has to be something that can be built onto a 60k (F4 or equivalent) racecar to really have any impact on the accidents IMHO. Otherwise, you are only talking about maybe Indy and F1 until the technology can trickle down...if it ever can. It also can't be too heavy, or it could really hurt the handling and overall spirit of the car. Tough problem to solve. I'm actually interested in the engineering of what they might propose, even though I don't support the change. The Mercedes "concept" render looks idiotic to me, but maybe I don't understand it. Obstructed view and doesn't open upside down.
It's only one solution. Not the one I would prefer. In most cases, a car would be put back the right way up to extract the injured driver anyway. As for the fire risk, onboard fire extinguishers could take care of that.
Makes sense, but some things that spring to mind: ...and how much will all this weigh exactly? ...does the system automatically engage? Since the driver may be unconscious? What happens when you fire the system and there is no ventilation since the driver is upside down in gravel? ...and if the opening mechanism is damaged in the crash and the driver is bleeding to death? Just as an example, while some kind of canopy might have saved Wilson, might it not have killed Hinchcliffe if it impaired the safety crew as he was gushing blood? ....more sensors, more systems, more failures is what my time working with computers has taught me. I'm more interested in how simple they can make the protection rather than how complex.
I'd like to see them test a ballistic polycarbonate screen that surrounds the cockpit that I mentioned earlier. Easy to incorporate, doesn't detract from the looks, doesn't have any downsides like an enclosed canopy, and can take one absolute hell of a beating if made in the proper thickness. It's also fairly cheap these days....relative to what the material used to cost. It wouldn't serve as a top-down crash structure, as in a car landing on a driver's head, but it would likely fix all the other problems. A partial carbon crash hoop would work here, placed on each side of the driver's head. It would look pretty old school, too. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Also, forgot to add MGU-EPHPWSCS. Motor Generator Unit Electrically Powered High Pressure Wind Screen Cleaning System...gotta keep that screen clean and please the FIA with a catchy acronym.
There are already sensors sticking up & almost as big in that spot. Not many have the chance to sit in an F1, but that will not obstruct view by much at all compared to how it already is.
Wilson and Surtees were not in F1 cars when they died. Senna was poked through the head by a suspension piece, questionable whether a canopy would have prevented that. The scenario of a F1 driver killed by being hit in the head is super rare and not worth the price of messing with the formula. Besides: adding a canopy or other devices could also negatively affect safety.
In all cases, it was a case of flying debris hitting the head of the driver in an opoen-cockpit single-seater and killing him in the process. It doesn't matter if they are F1, F2, F2, F3, GP2, GP3, Indy car, Indy lights, Formula Ford, etc... the causes of death are the same, and the cure could be adopted for all formulea.
If you think that a simple polycarbonate screen , like the one on the photo, is going to solve the problem, you are not being serious, IMHO. You need a solid structure, as part of the chassis, to resist the impact of flying debris and cockpit intrusion. A LMP cockpit is the best example. The driverr is fully enclosed and protected from all sides.
No, but they might have been. It's as likely to happen in F1 as in other open cockpit racing. If you or one of your loved ones was the victim of the super rare event, you might think differently. And the formula is being 'messed with' all the time, this would be just another change.
Then that is where the most concerned drivers with regard to their personal safety should go and race, LMP. They will have to compromise their pay and public interest to get that closed cockpit and that's why most don't or won't given a choice. Those that have a problem with open cockpits have choices already to race in other series and they know as do their families the history of F1 and the open wheel and cockpits. Don't like it nor want to take the risk, leave F1. Simple.
Reducing the risks in F1 has been an ongoing process for many years and there's no reason to stop that process. Obviously motor racing can never be risk free and drivers accept that, but there shouldn't be any UNNECESSARY risks.
Racing at nearly 200mph is an 'UNNECESSARY' risk. Maybe they should race under 100mph? Hell, lets put some silly cockpits on them and keep them at national speed limits.
Here they are testing two types of canopies; [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upqcj296l6w[/ame] Apart from the first one getting destroyed, the second (a jet fighter canopy) held up, but debris went "miles"..... I think that's one of the big reasons they didn't pursue it much further; They really don't want stuff flying into spectator areas. Cheers, Ian
+1 Please define "unnecessary?"..... Sticky out wheels are also "unnecessary?" Does that mean we should abandon everything from FF to F1? Cheers, Ian
