- 7,987
- GTP_Royalton
Interesting how the last death in 1994 was caused by the lack of a roof/canopy and foreign debris striking the driver in the helmet
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FIA considering closed cockpit F1 in the future?
- Thread starter Hun200kmh
- 664 comments
- 60,019 views
Interesting how the last death in 1994 was caused by the lack of a roof/canopy and foreign debris striking the driver in the helmet
- 21,262
- United States
He hit his head on the fence, which acted like a cheese grater when the car came into contact with it. Not sure how a canopy would have reduced his chance of death considering the rollhoop on the car was torn to bits.
- 9,401
- Western Sydney
- mustafur
F1 doesn't race at Packracing Ovals. So why does it matter.
- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
- 40,425
First of all, you can kiss my ass. The pretentiousness exuded by you whenever someone calls you on this garbage became obvious enough years ago that I feel sorry for anyone who actually takes it at face value.
Second of all, what part of "Drove underneath a car lift tractor servicing another car before yellow flag was thrown" is not a freak accident?
Okay. I'll call you out on that this time. What caused this thread to be bumped by you to regurgitate the same sentiment of how you want drivers to be hurt just so you can tell us how right you were other than Bianchi driving into the car lift tractor (something no closed cockpit in the world would help with, by the way); and what makes it any different from when you bumped this thread to talk about how necessary closed cockpits are because of when F1 test drivers run into the back end of transport trucks with the ramp halfway lowered?
- 21,262
- United States
I can think of one occurrence this season where a closed cockpit for open wheel cars would have been necessary.
When Mikhail Aleshin ended up with Juan Pablo Montoya's left rear tire resting on his helmet in Toronto. Aleshin wasn't injured, but just having a tire end up resting on a driver's head is a bad situation waiting to happen.
When Mikhail Aleshin ended up with Juan Pablo Montoya's left rear tire resting on his helmet in Toronto. Aleshin wasn't injured, but just having a tire end up resting on a driver's head is a bad situation waiting to happen.
- 2,097
- FL, USA, Earth, Sol, Local Bubble, Milky Way
- TeamACRZARacingo
- GyroxOpex
- 21,262
- United States
That wasn't an oval.
- 2,097
- FL, USA, Earth, Sol, Local Bubble, Milky Way
- TeamACRZARacingo
- GyroxOpex
It's still possible. F1 cars are still capable of speeds over 200 miles an hour, and it's only a matter of time before someone runs up someone else's wheel and ends up hitting their head on something. It's not as likely in F1, but the possibility is still there and so cannot be ignored.
- 9,401
- Western Sydney
- mustafur
Helmet safety technology has improved massively since that as well.
- 33,155
- Hammerhead Garage
A suspension arm penetrated his helmet. A canopy might have deflected it, or slowed it down. But the problem was also fixed by high-sided cockpits.
I think that is a real shame people who have no real knowledge of the sport seemingly have so much influence.
A closed canopy wouldn't have prevented serious injury, infact it could have made it worse by trapping the driver inside the car.
From what I can tell there are only two ways this freak accident could have been prevented/made safer ;
- more consistent staftey car deployment
- tractors that are covered in armco/protection so if they are impacted a car can't submarine under it and isn't hitting a solid metal block.
Canopies in f1 isn't practical for many resons, and people using this horrible accident to promote the use of them is not only idiotic it's pretty sick.
A closed canopy wouldn't have prevented serious injury, infact it could have made it worse by trapping the driver inside the car.
From what I can tell there are only two ways this freak accident could have been prevented/made safer ;
- more consistent staftey car deployment
- tractors that are covered in armco/protection so if they are impacted a car can't submarine under it and isn't hitting a solid metal block.
Canopies in f1 isn't practical for many resons, and people using this horrible accident to promote the use of them is not only idiotic it's pretty sick.
- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
I'm going to be Mr. Picky but that's the cause of his injury; not the cause of the accident (a whole other can of steering columns/skid planks/cold tyres). I'd also wonder if the problem was fixed or just more-strongly-mitigated against - but that's being really picky.
On the overall topic I think that a lot of people are seeing Bianchi's accident and saying that the Formula must change when in fact the greatest mitigation against a repeat of this accident is greater control of support vehicles on track and the flags under which they're handled.
EDIT: Just watching the video again... one could think laterally and say that the truck could have left the track much more quickly. Why didn't it? Every time we see the marshalls lift a car we see how rear-heavy they are now; the marshalls struggle to keep them level. That's exactly what's happening with Sutil's car.
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- 3,372
- St Helens. MSY
- FlyingFox_85
The for or against debate is irrelevant. What is the cost of a driver’s life? If it costs 50K as @Famine says then that is a small price to pay. If the FIA want to implement this then they should put their hands in their pockets and subsidise the teams.
Would it have altered the outcome in the Jules Bianchi crash? Possibly. Would it have altered the outcome in the Felipe Massa incident? Without a doubt.
As for evacuation of the driver you could as was said use the same system as the Mercedes SLS and have explosive bolts in the canopy or use the Harrier canopy system.
Because the pilot may have to eject whilst the plane is in a hover the canopy can be destroyed before the pilot ejects.
I think closed cockpits will happen but not for a very long time.
But its not just about the canopy. The FIA neer to look at the recovery vehicles too and make sure that an F1 car cannot go underneath it. Like this:
This is for stopping a road car but you get the idea.
Would it have altered the outcome in the Jules Bianchi crash? Possibly. Would it have altered the outcome in the Felipe Massa incident? Without a doubt.
As for evacuation of the driver you could as was said use the same system as the Mercedes SLS and have explosive bolts in the canopy or use the Harrier canopy system.
I think closed cockpits will happen but not for a very long time.
But its not just about the canopy. The FIA neer to look at the recovery vehicles too and make sure that an F1 car cannot go underneath it. Like this:
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- 28,567
- Bratvegas
- GTP_Liquid
No, you are spot on.
Canopies don't prevent accidents, but they might prevent injuries. It's a very important distinction to make.
You realise that an LMP1 cockpit and an f1 cockpit with a canopy share almost no similarities...
Fair enough, but I really don't think practically you can have canopies in F1 that work or that you can see our off.
The only way this incident (which to be fair Martin Brundel has pointed out as it almost happened to him) can be avoided in the future is either changing how cars are recovered, or change the vehicles which recover the cars.
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- 33,155
- Hammerhead Garage
Ask me again when a driver dies because he was trapped in the car and the marshals could not remove the canopy. It doesn't matter what you do - the only way to guarantee a driver's safety is to stop him from racing. That doesn't make what happened to Bianchi okay; it just highlights that there is no easy solution to the problem, and knee-jerk reactions aren't going to solve anything, except maybe allow you to convince yourself that you have done something.Your post is nothing more than an appeal to emotion, not logic.
- 40,425
As for evacuation of the driver you could as was said use the same system as the Mercedes SLS and have explosive bolts in the canopy or use the Harrier canopy system.
Because the pilot may have to eject whilst the plane is in a hover the canopy can be destroyed before the pilot ejects.
I personally can think of no problems with loading up F1 cockpits with detonation cord to shoot shards of glass away from the car at high velocity.
- 84,523
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
For the top F1 teams. Maybe Indycar too.
For the smaller units, not so much. For GP2... well, maybe Arden could keep going. For GP3, forget it. What about F3, national F3, Formula Ford, Super Formula, Formula Renault, F2000, Toyota Racing Series - and so on and so on?
Closed cabin cars are often brought up in the same sentence as Henry Surtees' death. Surtees died in an F2 car and a closed cockpit F1 car wouldn't have helped him one bit - so you need the tech to trickle down. At that point it becomes economically unviable - it's not a one-off cost.
Sure, for £50k a pop you'd keep Pastor Maldonado in the dry for many a year, but you'd kill all open-wheel feeder series in order to ameliorate freak incidents that seem to be occurring at a rate of one every decade. So where do we get the talented drivers from? Oh right, super rich pay drivers - I refer you right back to Pastor Maldonado.
Motorsports can be dangerous. Says it right on the ticket.
- 332
- Bristow, VA
- spacecowboy73
- spacecowboy73
The trickle down to lower feeder series is often overlooked.
Rob Smedley yesterday said closed cockpits would be easy to do. I sure would like to see what his solution would be since the FIA and Indycar for years have been looking into it and haven't shown anything yet except that video of firing a tire at different types of canopies. All that video seemed to do was point out the current problems with current technology for canopies.
I would like to hear what Anthony Davidson has to say on this topic since he's driven in F1 and also had a big accident in an LMP1.
Rob Smedley yesterday said closed cockpits would be easy to do. I sure would like to see what his solution would be since the FIA and Indycar for years have been looking into it and haven't shown anything yet except that video of firing a tire at different types of canopies. All that video seemed to do was point out the current problems with current technology for canopies.
I would like to hear what Anthony Davidson has to say on this topic since he's driven in F1 and also had a big accident in an LMP1.
- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
In the LMP cars as crashed by McNish and Davidson there is no movable canopy; the windscreen is a non-moving body fixture. F1 cars are a different shape and a different proposition... so while the views of any drivers would be interesting I'm not sure how LMP informs the specifics of an F1 solution.
After reading this: http://formerf1doc.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/2271/ I don't really agree, but it's pretty hard to argue with someone like Garry becasue he's a literal expert.
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