Banning openwheel cars? (Please close mods)

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GTP_Royalton
Why do single seaters have to be openwheel?

Tradition?

I think we've had enough tragedy and close calls not just recently but throughout the history of openwheel racing to see that particular style of car lends itself to unnecessary risks.

Risks openwheel cars lend themselves too much more then other racing machines

  • Open cockpit exposes drivers head to debri or obstacles
  • Touching wheels can launch a car. A car is most dangerous when it is airborne
  • Wheels tend to go flying further and easier when there is no fender to slow them down after an inital impact, numerous drivers, fans, and martials have been killed by flying tires

Why can't the cars look something like Polyphony's X1, with well covered wheels and a canopy?


At 3:02 in this videoyou can see that in yesterday's Indianapolis 500 there was almost another Henry Surtees accident, not to mention one driver almost going head first into catch fencing



And Conor Daly's crash at Monaco a couple of days ago

 
I think this is just a knee-jerk reaction. Motorsport, as is widely documented, is dangerous, and it's a testament to safety that Daly, Power and Conway all walked away from their accients without so much as a scratch on them. Forcing teams to build cars with enclosed wheels isn't going to fix safety issues. It's not going to stop crashes like this from happening:

 
The sad fact is people die in all sorts of racing cars. One type is not more inherently dangerous than any other type.
 
Stray wheels seem to pose the biggest danger, and I can't see it being an impossible task to increase the effectiveness of wheel tethers.

As far as no crash structure or protection infront of the drivers head goes, that's probably harder to deal with without fundamental changes.

At the end of the day it's about acceptable risks, and it can only be true that the drivers, pit crews, marshalls and spectators* understand and accept the risks. Spectators less so, but they are warned and they are at the smallest risk.
 
I think that the main problem with open-wheel cars isn't because they flip. You can never stop a car from flipping but you can stop the wheels coming off. IndyCar and other series need to develop stronger wheel tethers to attach the wheel to the chassis as F1 and Nascar are have got to grips with.

Elio Castroneves could have been knocked out or even killed as Henry Surtees was.
 
There are two problems here, and each need to be separately addressed:

Open wheel cars

Open cockpit cars

The greatest problem is the "open cockpit" part because stray wheels won't hit the head of closed cockpit car drivers.

(they can hit marshals and public, I'm aware of that but I don't consider the odds of that happening to be outside of the regular "danger zone" of watching a motorsports event. Body panels and broken parts can do that also and are more difficult to avoid).


I think the FIA is trying to come up with a solution for the "open cockpit" problem. Maybe we won't like it, but nobody liked also to see the F1 cars out of the Nordschleife for good. Or to see the end of the Hunaudieres straight being flat out from the Tertre Rouge corner up to the Mulsanne corner.

Much more important than the open cockpit problem is, in my view, the fence-design problem.
 
Chqr
IndyCar and other series need to develop stronger wheel tethers to attach the wheel to the chassis as F1 and Nascar are have got to grips with.
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Do you think they're held on with dental floss?

Physics dictates that no matter how strong the wheel tethers are, the wheels will always come free if you apply the right (or rather, wrong) amount of force in the right (/wrong) direction, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
 
prisonermonkeys
Do you think they're held on with dental floss?

Physics dictates that no matter how strong the wheel tethers are, the wheels will always come free if you apply the right (or rather, wrong) amount of force in the right (/wrong) direction, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
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In theory, but in practice there is only a finite amount of force that will/can ever act on the wheel, this can be calculated given a worst case scenario, and a specification issued to become part of the crash test. The teams manage to stop a 70kg driver being ejected from the cockpit during an impact, so I'm sure they can do more to stop a 20kg wheel - I could be wrong, maybe it's the one area F1 designers can't improve upon, but I disagree with the suggestion that because things ALWAYS fail at some point, that it's fruitless to try and improve.

Open wheeler suspension will always be as fragile as the designers can get away with, to reduce weight and drag etc. I'm pretty sure if you gave them a £1m fine per wheel that gets loose, you'd probably never see it happen again.
 
Hun200kmh
There are two problems here, and each need to be separately addressed:

Open wheel cars

Open cockpit cars

The greatest problem is the "open cockpit" part because stray wheels won't hit the head of closed cockpit car drivers.

(they can hit marshals and public, I'm aware of that but I don't consider the odds of that happening to be outside of the regular "danger zone" of watching a motorsports event. Body panels and broken parts can do that also and are more difficult to avoid).


I think the FIA is trying to come up with a solution for the "open cockpit" problem. Maybe we won't like it, but nobody liked also to see the F1 cars out of the Nordschleife for good. Or to see the end of the Hunaudieres straight being flat out from the Tertre Rouge corner up to the Mulsanne corner.

Much more important than the open cockpit problem is, in my view, the fence-design problem.
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NASCAR competes in races on high speed ovals with fans not too far from what use to be very, very short catch fencing. But in over 60 years of competition no spectator has been killed in a NASCAR race. I believe this can be attributed to NASCAR using traditional, closed fender cars.

Now if you look at the history of openwheel racing on ovals in America on the same NASCAR tracks you will see half a dozen spectator deaths in the last 10 or so years.

A driver has not been killed in F1 since Ayrton Senna, but marshalls have been killed since then by flying tires.

You and GTPorsche bring up good points about the catch fencing. In the recent spectator deaths in Indycar if the catch fencing was a little taller then they probably wouldn't have happened. After the deaths the catch fencing at both Michigan and Charlotte were heightened and bent over at the top to keep debri inside the race course.

But it needs to go further. I heard some time ago Indycar is looking into some kind of hockey rink type fencing to replace the current fences. Such a barrier would allow greter visibility and would help keep fluids and smaller pieces of debri inside the course. Also it would not shred the cars apart when they strike them.

I ask this question to open wheel fans: Do you like the extra danger posed by open cockpits and open wheel tires?

Because I see no point in keeping a design for racing cars that adds extra risk.
 
I think it's the nature of the beast, motor racing is inherently dangerous.

Oval racing often has multi-car crashes and pedestrians near to the fence.
Drag racing often has issues with fuel and fire.
Rallying has a terrible history with crashed into trees or harm to spectators.

But to attempt to thoroughly remove any risk from these sports would fundamentally change them, for the worse.

MatskiMonk
In theory, but in practice there is only a finite amount of force that will/can ever act on the wheel, this can be calculated given a worst case scenario, and a specification issued to become part of the crash test. The teams manage to stop a 70kg driver being ejected from the cockpit during an impact, so I'm sure they can do more to stop a 20kg wheel - I could be wrong, maybe it's the one area F1 designers can't improve upon, but I disagree with the suggestion that because things ALWAYS fail at some point, that it's fruitless to try and improve.

Open wheeler suspension will always be as fragile as the designers can get away with, to reduce weight and drag etc. I'm pretty sure if you gave them a £1m fine per wheel that gets loose, you'd probably never see it happen again.
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But crashes are so dynamic it's extremely difficult to predict all scenarios.

The issues are firstly the strength and weight of the tether, but also the anchoring at both ends. Carbon fibre probably doesn't enjoy having steel anchors torn from it, and tether can only be connected to the wheels in so many ways!

Earth
I ask this question to open wheel fans: Do you like the extra danger posed by open cockpits and open wheel tires?

Because I see no point in keeping a design for racing cars that adds extra risk.
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We don't enjoy these aspects of danger, but to introduce close cockpits and fenders would remove the light-weight race-bred ideals of the formula racing heritage. They'd simply be one seater touring cars or Le Mans type prototypes.
 
Replacing the chain link with a strong plexi-glass might be a good idea. It would just take some testing, as would any other alternatives.

Another idea for the ovals is to remove the banking.
 
I think first and foremost they should improve driver head protection in open cockpit cars.

Then they should go about ensuring the safety of marshalls and spectators.

Many types of Motorsport should learn from F1 in their push for safety, and likewise F1 should learn from other motorsports.

F1 has made the push to make the cars safer for the drivers and is seriously looking into better head protection regardless of the outdated arguments against. Meanwhile oval racing in the US is seeing a step up in protection for spectators. Deaths from Marshalls in F1 are generally a result of loose debris than by the car itself. Adequate catch fencing is not enough; there needs to be something that can stop any debris from getting through; something which will not deform enough to hit a marshall on the track edge, but be flexible enough to disappate the energy of a high speed impact.

I firmly do not believe that the problem lies with the open wheel nature of the cars.
 
carracerptp
Glare: How much worse can it be then the big shiny cars?.
Cleaning: Windex... OK joking, but tear offs could work. Or whatever they use now in F1 to keep helmet visors clean.
Rain, LMPs can hand it.
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It was in regard to the catch-fencing suggestion, not the canopy.
 
tribolik
What about motorcycles?
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That brings up a very good point. When you think about it, it's amazing motorbike racing hasn't been banned all these years. Everybody always talks about safety in auto racing, but I haven't heard much about bike safety TBH.

Perhaps we have accepted that the massive risks involved in motorbike racing are just "the nature of the beast", and really not much can be done to change that? Perhaps there will come a time when we can't improve auto racing safety much further and leave it at that?
 
scarslasher
Good luck killing the Indy 500. IRL is open to replacing ovals with road courses after Dan's death. But they couldn't remove the Indy 500 if they wanted.
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I know. Basically I think we have to accept some risks in motorsport as that's just the way it is. It's part of the appeal, after all. None of us want to see people die in it, but we do like the occasional excitement and entertainment from driver mistakes. It's a sporting event, after all. Maybe some would like to see perfect races with no sense of drama or danger, I don't know, but it certainly would be harder to sell in that case.
 
ExigeEvan
We don't enjoy these aspects of danger, but to introduce close cockpits and fenders would remove the light-weight race-bred ideals of the formula racing heritage. They'd simply be one seater touring cars or Le Mans type prototypes.
Click to expand...

I think they can get rid of the danger of open wheels and open cockpit and still look unique and race bred without looking like a le man prototype or touring car

http://resource.mmgn.com/Gallery/full/GT5-Red-Bull-Sebastian-Vettel-X1-2010-1041428.jpg


Grand Prix
That brings up a very good point. When you think about it, it's amazing motorbike racing hasn't been banned all these years. Everybody always talks about safety in auto racing, but I haven't heard much about bike safety TBH.

Perhaps we have accepted that the massive risks involved in motorbike racing are just "the nature of the beast", and really not much can be done to change that? Perhaps there will come a time when we can't improve auto racing safety much further and leave it at that?
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While Moto drivers to get hurt probably more often then any other racing series, when it comes to actual deaths the number isn't quite as high as othe racing series. In the past 25 years Moto GP has lost 4 riders, while NASCAR's top Sprint Cup series has lost 10 drivers in that span. Both series have made enormous strides in safety, though. NASCAR hasn't lost a driver in it's top series since 2001, and Moto GP has improved greatly from the days where it lost one or two drivers a year.

I think part of moto's safety issues is the age they let these guys race. I remember a 14 year old kid being killed at Indianapolis in one of the support races leading up to the moto GP round. NASCAR has a 18 year old age limit to drive in the series and I think moto racing should follow that lead.

After Simoncelli's Moto GP accident last year I did want to quit and stop watching racing. And for a time I did. It was an almost unavoidable accident. There wasn't any safety advancement that could have stopped it. It was, as you say, the nature of the beast.

But for every unavoidable accident, I see 5, 10 avoidable fatal accidents.

Though safety has come a far way, it still has a long way to go yet. Racing series arent losing a driver or two a year like in the 70s. But it still happens, and alot of the time it could have been avoided if a certain safety advancement had been thought of first.

I can't but help and look at tracks and see all the safety issues with them. Same with the cars, I can't overlook the safety issues inherit to openwheel cars.

There are those who believe that you can't enjoy the excitement and thrill of racing without the danger of death. Personally, I don't believe that. I can get excited just fine over a go-kart race. But when the risks get too high and you have something like pack racing on an oval with openwheel cars, it turns my stomach and turns me off.

If a driver makes a mistake and crashes, he should have soft walls to bounce off of, plenty of runoff room to get slowed down. Formula 1 has not lost a driver in 18 years. Does that take away from the excitement and thrill of the race? Do the drivers really need to stare death in the eyes every race?

In the end, maybe racing is not for me. Or, maybe like a Jackie Stewart I'm somewhat ahead of my time, advocating safety advances that others mock and ridicule. I do know that I can live without racing, and I'm not sure, well I am sure that the death is not worth it, at least to me.

While the sting of Simoncelli's passing has faded with time, at times I wish it hadn't and I stayed away.
 
Hun200kmh
There are two problems here, and each need to be separately addressed:

Open wheel cars

Open cockpit cars

The greatest problem is the "open cockpit" part because stray wheels won't hit the head of closed cockpit car drivers.
Click to expand...

At least it didn't take too many posts for someone to get it right.

The safety concerns raised in the topic post can be remedied by a closed cockpit, and not by closed wheels. As long as the driver is at least partially exposed, there will always exist some risk to the driver, whether wheels are open or covered.
 
Possibly get some really strong glass and go the route of the Ariel Atom. Minimal glass, but tough.

And possibly flexible to absorb some of the force?
 
Adrian Newey doesn't think there should be closed cockpits in F1. When we asked him, we got a long answer with the main gist of it being about how it would be too expensive to filter down into lower formulae.
 
Earth
I think they can get rid of the danger of open wheels and open cockpit and still look unique and race bred without looking like a le man prototype or touring car

http://resource.mmgn.com/Gallery/full/GT5-Red-Bull-Sebastian-Vettel-X1-2010-1041428.jpg
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It's a poor compromise, and one that doesn't suit.

Introducing all that body work only leads to a far, far messier aerodynamic flow over the vehicle. The only justification for such design is to make them road legal. You may as well cover the whole body and have a better air flow for it.

And are you really trying to use a computer game car to justify it?
 

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