FIA considering closed cockpit F1 in the future?

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I've already said my piece on closed cockpits and my opinion hasn't changed since then.

Moving back generally on topic, F1 needs to treat causes, not symptoms. I've re-read this thread from it's origin two years ago and @prisonermonkeys was spot on back in 2012. A closed canopy doesn't prevent accidents, and might indeed cause more accidents or accidents of a specific nature. A closed canopy wouldn't have stopped de Villota crashing. A closed canopy wouldn't have stopped Bianchi crashing. A closed canopy wouldn't have stopped Senna, Berger or Piquet crashing.

As counter-intuitive as it sounds, in each of those specific events you have to look at why the car crashed or what it crashed into and not automatically try and fix the injuries. Senna shouldn't have been driving a car with a known fault. Bianchi should have slowed the hell down (credit @Famine on that point). Those trackside vehicles should have been better placed for de Villota.

Never mind that a closed canopy might have stopped Senna's wishbone, he shouldn't have been going straight on at Tamburello in the first place and he definitely shouldn't have been slamming into a concrete wall. Never mind that a closed canopy might have negated some of de Villota's impact, why the hell was she hitting a goddamned lorry in a private testing session?

Let's talk about another incident that happened at Dunlop curve at a wet Suzuka. This time, we're in 1994. Gianni Morbidelli's Footwork has aquaplaned into the barriers and is a complete wreck. The marshalls and a tractor are winching it off the circuit when all of a sudden, Martin Brundle aquaplanes off at the exact same spot. He somehow misses all of the equipment, the trackside vehicles and Morbidelli's stricken Footwork. Phew. Bet he wished he had a canopy in case he hit one of those, right? Well, he did hit a marshall holding no items, breaking the man's leg in the process. Canopy solves nothing there. You need to look at the factors causing the crash; if you watch the video of the incident, it's damn scary how dangerous procedure was in 1994 when they're moving Morbidelli's car. (Brundle incident at 3:45)

Do not misunderstand. Nobody here is denying the benefits a closed canopy could offer. But the practicality of implementing them, particularly for the junior formulae, means it simply is not viable even before you realise that it doesn't fix the problems open wheel racing has.

Instead of giving them canopies and having them still crash into tractors, trucks, concrete walls or even people, we have learnt a hell of a lot more about trackside vehicle management, course cautions, course caution speeds, wet weather race control, barrier construction, rollhoop design, helmet design, cockpit design, suspension design, wheel tethering and marshalling.

"But Liquid, you're just being a pedantic arse talking about crash causes vs crash injuries." Yes I am, and it's important to do so if we're talking about driver safety. We want to stop them having crashes in the first place.
 
What if there was an emergency exit on the floor?

A patently ridiculous idea.

All the cables and linkages that run from these mid-engined cars?
The staggering compromise of aerodynamics?
The staggering compromise of the monococque?
The very idea that you can cut a hole on the floor of a race car and the driver will be able to simply climb out when he's upside down with seatbelts in a car where he is already designed to fit with minimal excess room as possible?
 
A patently ridiculous idea.

All the cables and linkages that run from these mid-engined cars?
The staggering compromise of aerodynamics?
The staggering compromise of the monococque?
The very idea that you can cut a hole on the floor of a race car and the driver will be able to simply climb out when he's upside down with seatbelts in a car where he is already designed to fit with minimal excess room as possible?
I didn't really think that one through. :lol: I still think my modified prototype suggestion is the best solution for a closed cockpit open wheeler. "But that would need significant changes to the car." But they are designing a new gen car for Indycar right now, so they are making changes anyways...

You said the best thing to do is to avoid the crashes in the first place in your last message. But in some cases crashing is unavoidable. So I think we should treat both the causes and the symptoms if we can. Higher general car safety is never a bad thing. :cheers:
 
You said the best thing to do is to avoid the crashes in the first place in your last message. But in some cases crashing is unavoidable.

That's the fine line. As Murray Walker said, "it's not safe and it never will be". But that doesn't mean we can't try and make it safer. You only have to look at the evolution of motor racing from the 1930s to the 1950s to the 1970s to the 1990s to now and you can see how far we've come.

But let's not throw out the baby with the bath water. Using my razor in my previous, long post, go back to looking at how Wilson's incident took place and not strictly what injuries killed him. He hit a piece of flying debris. What piece of debris? A nose cone (I believe). Can we make nosecones safer? Is it sensible to try and make them less likely to detach in the event of a crash? Can we make them less likely to fragment and splinter in the event of a crash?

Or even that someone else had crashed in front of him. Look at where he went off and if the barriers could have make splaying debris less likely.

That's where you can begin looking at improvements. You cannot say three drivers would have lived if they had x because there's plenty of drivers who might have died in other cases. These things have to be evaluated on a case by case basis.
 
knee-jerk1.gif


How many drivers race open-cockpit race cars every weekend and have been for a hundred years or so? How many of them die due to being hit by debris or parts of their own car in an accident? How many would die or would be seriously injured due do being stuck in their vehicle if open cockpits were outlawed?
 
Oh, it's not that bad. It's not like he suggested a downwards-firing ejector seat.
I was thinking how buses have doors on their ceilings incase they roll over. :lol: its a terrible idea. :)


Here's a fantastic educational article from a doctor /racecar driver about crashing and causes of death. WARNING: CONTAINS MORBID INFORMATION!
http://blog.parathyroid.com/race-car-deaths-medical-causes-racing-deaths/

Here is a quote from it that is great, and deserves to be shared:
Race hard, enjoy the thrill of our sport, but give a thought to those who have made our lives and careers safer and longer by what we have learned, and continue to learn, with each tragic loss. Let’s work together to improve the sport we so dearly love.
 
What is the cost of a F1/indy car? I don't actually know... I do know that Audi spend 250 million a season on WEC though. But they are Audi... They are there to win. :lol:

I was at an F1 factory looking at an "old" F1 car under the wind-tunnel and I asked that very question. I was told that the build budget for that year was £120 million, they built two, so it was a £60 million race car.

Closed-cockpits... let's wait and see what the technical report says. We had this debate after Bianchi and then learnt that the canopy/roof would have made no difference at all.
 
Guys, five words:

Isle of Man Tourist Throphy

Many deaths there and its still running as it is. Im not against safety but like some says here, accidents is unpredictable at best.

What would you do when someone died on the closed cockpit car, i wonder.
 
I hope you're joking. That's a terrible idea.

Well, not completely. More of a personal thing. I may ban auto racing from my viewing personally.

Partly because of quotes like prisoner monkeys and the other quotes.

What Im thinking is, maybe they are the core motorsports fan, and Im not? Maybe racing isnt for me? Theres a significant chunk of auto racing fans who enjoy the danger open cockpit and openwheels presents to drivers. I dont. I want both gone. Im sick and tired of watching an openwheel race and having knots in my stomach thinking about the terrible possibilities of crashes opencockpit cars offer.

People wonder why now? These cars have been around forever. Well, maybe because we grew up with them and kind of just accepted the risk? I was only about 10 years old when I saw Jeff Krosnoff touch wheels and go flying into the air where he hit his exposed head on a trackside tree. It never crossed my mind even for a second how completely preventable the crash was. What would have been incidental contact in any other type of racing car cost the lives of a track marshall and driver. But I was 10. And for the next 15+ years I just accepted the danger because thats all I ever knew. That was just part of the danger openwheel cars presented. It never crossed my mind that the danger was avoidable if the cars were designed differently.

50 years ago if you talked to somebody at Le Mans and asked them why are there no barriers on the Mulsanne they would probably tell you its a risk the drivers are willing to take. And even if they did add barriers, who to say they wouldnt just tumble over them or through them anyway? You can become accustomed to risks...

But maybe racing just isnt for me, someone with a mindset like mine. Crashes like this I have a very hard time passing off as a 'product of high speed racing' when theres been plenty of warnings beforehand. Just as I had something bothering me for the longest time telling me Indycar pack racing was too dangerous, and would likely end in tragedy.... Knowing something will end badly and then seeing it is a terrible feeling. Its not a freak accident to me when I've seen it happen before multiple times....whether it be near misses, minor injuries (one Indycar driver at Michigan had a knot on his head the size of an egg after being struck by a small peice of debri years ago) major injuries like Massa or death....

If I look at the last 10 or so Indycar deaths, many were preventable if people simply expected the worse instead of reacting to safety issues after the fact.

Im kind of tried of debating this, which is why I havent really responded to many directly, because maybe they are true motorsport fans and Im not? I should probably stop watching racing. Maybe its time
 
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Partly because of quotes like prisoner monkeys and the other quotes.
Why? Because I feel that immediately reacting to Wilson's death by fundamentally overhauling the sport without due consideration of the circumstances that led up to the crash and the implications of such changes would be a terrible idea?

It's east to get caught up in the tragedy of accidents like Wilson's, but consider it objectively - Karam hit the wall with enough force to tear the front wing and throw it into the air. Its trajectory was such that it came down and hit Wilson in the head. To do that, it had to land square-on in a space twenty centimetres across. And given Wilson's speed at the time, it had to be incredibly precise in its timing. It would be an extremely difficult accident to replicate under controlled conditions, much less the uncontrolled environment of a race.

Even if you could predict and counter-act the accident, there is always going to be an accident with the potential to kill a driver.
 
I'm not too keen on a fully closed cockpit idea, but for purely aesthetical and heritage reasons, not because of the "oh no the driver will be trapped inside" ... I just don't buy that and in a way it reminds me of the era when people were against seatbelts in F1 because of the ... you guessed it ... "oh no the driver will be trapped inside" !

But I do think a windscreen with some sort of (non-obstrusive to driver view) roll hoop has to be fitted. Maybe it wouldn't have saved Justin Wilson and Henry Surtees (impacts from above) but I do believe it would've given them a better chance of survival. And it would most probably have saved the lives of Dan Wheldon and Jules Bianchi.
 
Motor racing, in all it's forms, is inherently dangerous. You can never make it safe enough to say that no one will ever die from it ever again.
But motorsport is far from the only sport where participants risk their lives. But all competitors are well aware of those risks before they take part.

But I do think a windscreen with some sort of (non-obstrusive to driver view) roll hoop has to be fitted. Maybe it wouldn't have saved Justin Wilson and Henry Surtees (impacts from above) but I do believe it would've given them a better chance of survival. And it would most probably have saved the lives of Dan Wheldon and Jules Bianchi.

I think it's highly unlikely that any kind of safety measure could have prevented the deaths of Dan and Jules, such were the forces involved. You can maybe deflect debris away from a driver's head, but a direct impact with anything that solid is going to end the same way no matter what you put in front of it. Remember that the roll hoop behind Jules' head was ripped off in the impact.
 
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Why? Because I feel that immediately reacting to Wilson's death by fundamentally overhauling the sport without due consideration of the circumstances that led up to the crash and the implications of such changes would be a terrible idea?

It's east to get caught up in the tragedy of accidents like Wilson's, but consider it objectively - Karam hit the wall with enough force to tear the front wing and throw it into the air. Its trajectory was such that it came down and hit Wilson in the head. To do that, it had to land square-on in a space twenty centimetres across. And given Wilson's speed at the time, it had to be incredibly precise in its timing. It would be an extremely difficult accident to replicate under controlled conditions, much less the uncontrolled environment of a race.

Even if you could predict and counter-act the accident, there is always going to be an accident with the potential to kill a driver.
But if it was a closed cockpit like the deltawing, he wouldn't have been hit either.

@Earth I don't like the danger either. I am not a fan of IndyCar or F1, I find them to not have as good of racing because the cars are too fast. But it is amazing to see how fast they are single file. Everything seems to have gotten faster recently. Even a GTE Pro car going around the porsche curves this year looked like the footage had been sped up. Nose to tail racing is boring. Id rather see a stock car style pack. (No deaths in the leading stock car series for 14 years, and that one was preventable). But my favorite is multi class endurance racing I love seeing the constant tension between the different classes and the 4 to 24 hour long chess games that they play. Alan Simonson died in 2013 unfortunately, but the last one before that was 1986. And if you look at the mind blowingly horrible accidents that have happened recently without injury, its fantastic. Austin Dillons wreck at Daytona, the 2 audis in 2011, the Mercedes CLR in 1999, the toyota in 2012, loic duval in practice 2014? The Aston near the end of the 2015 race. Safety has come such a long way.

Racing doesn't have to be banned entirely. It just needs to keep its emphasis in saving lives. When a racecar driver gets injured, it doesn't only help develop the safety of the racecars, it helps develop the safety of the road cars too. Auto racing saves lives with its evolutionary development.

@TheCracker Jules and Alan's deaths were both meaningless. They were caused by track officials that were asleep on the job. In jules case. There should've been a larger local caution space or many even a FCY and in Alan's there was a large tree behind the guard rail. If the tree had been cut down it is likely that he would've survived.
 
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We can't prevent every accident but more still needs to be done to minimise the risk of another tragic death.

All open-cockpit racing series from Indycar and F1 right down to junior formula will need to do something to reduce the risk of debris hitting a driver's helmet as this type of freak accident could happen to anyone in any formula series.
 
Topics merged as its the same discussion.

I remember there was another thread but didn't remember I was the one to open it. :dunce:

Still, the video in the OP remains a very interesting one and I suggest newer members to check it out, and older members to watch it again as I just did.

@TheCracker you are maybe right in Jules' case, because more than an impact it was the sudden decelaration that caused the most damage to his brain (although the reports mention the impact itself as cause too). But in Dan Wheldon's case I do believe the canopy would have saved him, and even the windshield, although weaker (see the video in the OP) would've deflected much of the forces sustained by his helmet.
 
@TheCracker Jules and Alan's deaths were both meaningless. They were caused by track officials that were asleep on the job. In jules case. There should've been a larger local caution space or many even a FCY
In Jules's case he should have stuck to the delta and paid attention to the marshal flags rather than pushing. His accident was his fault - but in part caused by the culture of F1 to find the tenths under any circumstances, because everyone else is doing it.
and in Alan's there was a large tree behind the guard rail. If the tree had been cut down it is likely that he would've survived.
It's a public road, not a race track. That particular section of circuit is a tree-lined boulevard and the crash barriers are installed every year for the event. It's the barriers that need looking at, not taking a chainsaw to a 90 year old tree - and that's exactly what they did in response to the freak accident, by moving the barriers 1.5m forward from the trees and increasing the number of elements to it.


Folk need to look up the word "accident". There is only so much one can do as prophylaxis before you have to simply wait for a crash to happen. People have been crashing at Tertre Rouge for years, but Simonsen proved that you can have a middle speed fatal accident there that could be easily preventable in the future, so sensible changes were made. Bianchi proved that sometimes drivers simply can't be trusted in F1 to slow down or be prepared to stop (this is literally what yellow flags mean) even for their own safety because of the pressure from teams to perform. This resulted in a long overdue rule change.

Justin Wilson hit debris from someone else's accident several seconds before and several hundreds of yards after the initial point of impact. That's way beyond a million to one chance - I doubt any of us could throw a projectile into a helmet of an open-cockpit car going past at 200mph even if we spent all day at it. There is simply no reasonable precaution one could take to prevent this from happening - and indeed we shouldn't be seeking to mitigate million to one chances because it's unlikely they'll ever happen again.

On the face of it, closed cockpits would have prevented Wilson's and Surtees' deaths and Massa's head injury, but at what cost? Before you leap in and yell about how much a driver's life is worth and how much money F1 makes (or Indycar) you need to consider that it's not just F1/IndyCar - or F2 in the case of Surtees. If you're banning open cockpits you need to address LMP1/2, GP2, GP3, F3, F3.5/WSR, F4, Formula E, Libre, SuperFormula, Formula Ford, TRS - all the way down to karting. You'll need to significantly alter vehicle structures, which costs a lot of money and it affects racing at all levels. Motorsports is already extremely expensive and pretty much the playground either of people with a lot of money or with sufficient talent to attract a lot of money having competed at lower levels already with a lot of their own money (or have a famous surname). Price kids out of karting 20 years ago and none of our current F1 champions are even racing drivers - indeed the best who'd still be in it is Pastor Maldonado, and do you know just how many F1 accidents you could prevent by banning Pastor Maldonado?


We either accept that we can prevent with legislation and the occasional piece of hardware change (such as HANS - which will be compulsory in UK motorsport on 1/1/2016) the majority of likely accidents that could cause serious injury and not prevent million to one shots that cause a death every 20 years or so, or we end up with Pastor Maldonado as the best driver in the world.
 
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I honestly cannot see anything they can do, a closed cockpit has the risk of trapping the driver if upside down or if the hatch fails and could kill a driver if the car catches on fire (that is unless they implement NASCAR style onboard fire extinguishers, which too could fail or not put out the fire entirely).
 
I honestly cannot see anything they can do, a closed cockpit has the risk of trapping the driver if upside down or if the hatch fails and could kill a driver if the car catches on fire (that is unless they implement NASCAR style onboard fire extinguishers, which too could fail or not put out the fire entirely).
A screen surrounding the driver but open at the top or a mini roll cage to stop any large objects from entering the cockpit.
 
A screen surrounding the driver but open at the top or a mini roll cage to stop any large objects from entering the cockpit.
If there's an opening, things can get in.

A "mini roll cage" will only block lines of sight when the driver's vision is already restricted.
 
Why? Because I feel that immediately reacting to Wilson's death by fundamentally overhauling the sport without due consideration of the circumstances that led up to the crash and the implications of such changes would be a terrible idea?

It's east to get caught up in the tragedy of accidents like Wilson's, but consider it objectively - Karam hit the wall with enough force to tear the front wing and throw it into the air. Its trajectory was such that it came down and hit Wilson in the head. To do that, it had to land square-on in a space twenty centimetres across. And given Wilson's speed at the time, it had to be incredibly precise in its timing. It would be an extremely difficult accident to replicate under controlled conditions, much less the uncontrolled environment of a race.

Justin Wilson was just the latest in an extensive list of drivers who received minor to fatal injuries after being struck in the head by debri

Just off the top of my head heres a list of drivers who have died in the last 20 years after receiving a blow to the head in an open cockpit car.

2015 - Justin Wilson
2014 - Jules Bianchi (May have died anyways, but sustained serious brain injury after his head struck the tractor)
2011 - Dan Wheldon
2009 - Henry Surtees
1996 - Jeff Krossnoff
1995 - Marcos Campos
1994 - Ayrton Senna

Thats alot of death

And this doesnt count many concussions and countless near misses. There was a lower tier formula driver at Spa just last weekened swerving wildly around the track trying to avoid a tire flying across the racing line.

The only reason why something hasnt been done yet is because the organizers fear fan backlash if opencockpit racing is changed dramatically. Nobody really cared that sportscar racing has banned open cockpit cars for the future because they've always had closed and open cars. But openwheel cars have always had open cockpits, and changing that, even in the name of safety, would enrage many fans.

So thats why this thing has been dragged out for so long. The changes needed would require an overhaul of what people perceive single seater racing cars to look like. That would likely result in a loss of fans. Big businesses are willing to absorb a few deaths if it means a few more million in their pockets.

I think at this moment, Indycar, F1 etc are hoping the talk of this dies down. They'll put on a dog and pony show by testing cockpit safety alternatives while secretly hoping people forget about the risk, and there are no future incidents. If there is a future incident, they hope its far out enough in the future where people will dismiss it as a fluke.

Even if you could predict and counter-act the accident, there is always going to be an accident with the potential to kill a driver.

I understand that. Paul Dana's fatal crash is an example of high speeds proving to be too much to overcome. But the march of safety must continue.

But if it was a closed cockpit like the deltawing, he wouldn't have been hit either.

@Earth I don't like the danger either. I am not a fan of IndyCar or F1, I find them to not have as good of racing because the cars are too fast. But it is amazing to see how fast they are single file. Everything seems to have gotten faster recently. Even a GTE Pro car going around the porsche curves this year looked like the footage had been sped up. Nose to tail racing is boring. Id rather see a stock car style pack. (No deaths in the leading stock car series for 14 years, and that one was preventable). But my favorite is multi class endurance racing I love seeing the constant tension between the different classes and the 4 to 24 hour long chess games that they play. Alan Simonson died in 2013 unfortunately, but the last one before that was 1986. And if you look at the mind blowingly horrible accidents that have happened recently without injury, its fantastic. Austin Dillons wreck at Daytona, the 2 audis in 2011, the Mercedes CLR in 1999, the toyota in 2012, loic duval in practice 2014? The Aston near the end of the 2015 race. Safety has come such a long way.

Racing doesn't have to be banned entirely. It just needs to keep its emphasis in saving lives. When a racecar driver gets injured, it doesn't only help develop the safety of the racecars, it helps develop the safety of the road cars too. Auto racing saves lives with its evolutionary development.

NASCAR has been playing russian roulette with its pack racing for a long time now...they were fortunate that a tire in the Larson Daytona crash that ended up in the 25th row did not kill anyone. And how many times are they going to let their cars fly full speed into the catch fence in front of thousands of people and keep praying it doesnt go through? That day it goes through is the day NASCAR ceases to exist forever.
 
@TheCracker you are maybe right in Jules' case, because more than an impact it was the sudden decelaration that caused the most damage to his brain (although the reports mention the impact itself as cause too). But in Dan Wheldon's case I do believe the canopy would have saved him, and even the windshield, although weaker (see the video in the OP) would've deflected much of the forces sustained by his helmet.

Still don't think a canopy or wind shield would have made any difference. His head impacted with one of the solid mounted fence posts. A canopy, even one of those jet fighter ones that worked admirably against the tyre/wheel in the video in the OP, couldn't have deflected a solid post or even deflected what remained of the car at the speed involved.

Just off the top of my head heres a list of drivers who have died in the last 20 years after receiving a blow to the head in an open cockpit car.

2015 - Justin Wilson
2014 - Jules Bianchi (May have died anyways, but sustained serious brain injury after his head struck the tractor)
2011 - Dan Wheldon
2009 - Henry Surtees
1996 - Jeff Krossnoff
1995 - Marcos Campos
1994 - Ayrton Senna

Thats alot of death

And this doesnt count many concussions and countless near misses. There was a lower tier formula driver at Spa just last weekened swerving wildly around the track trying to avoid a tire flying across the racing line.

The only reason why something hasnt been done yet is because the organizers fear fan backlash if opencockpit racing is changed dramatically. Nobody really cared that sportscar racing has banned open cockpit cars for the future because they've always had closed and open cars. But openwheel cars have always had open cockpits, and changing that, even in the name of safety, would enrage many fans.

More professional football (soccer if you're that way inclined) players have died in the same time period through head injuries too. Should they be made to wear helmets? Are there even calls for them to do so?
 
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My main concern with close cockpits is getting out when upside down or quickly. Why not have a quick release button which completely unlocks the closing and would mean the closing would drop to the floor when upside down and the driver would be able to get out pretty much as quickly.
 
The only reason why something hasnt been done yet is because the organizers fear fan backlash if opencockpit racing is changed dramatically. Nobody really cared that sportscar racing has banned open cockpit cars for the future because they've always had closed and open cars. But openwheel cars have always had open cockpits, and changing that, even in the name of safety, would enrage many fans.

So thats why this thing has been dragged out for so long. The changes needed would require an overhaul of what people perceive single seater racing cars to look like. That would likely result in a loss of fans.
No, it's because it would need to affect ALL tiers that use open cockpits and this would utterly destroy motorsports as anything other than a plaything for rich kids.
On the face of it, closed cockpits would have prevented Wilson's and Surtees' deaths and Massa's head injury, but at what cost? Before you leap in and yell about how much a driver's life is worth and how much money F1 makes (or Indycar) you need to consider that it's not just F1/IndyCar - or F2 in the case of Surtees. If you're banning open cockpits you need to address LMP1/2, GP2, GP3, F3, F3.5/WSR, F4, Formula E, Libre, SuperFormula, Formula Ford, TRS - all the way down to karting. You'll need to significantly alter vehicle structures, which costs a lot of money and it affects racing at all levels. Motorsports is already extremely expensive and pretty much the playground either of people with a lot of money or with sufficient talent to attract a lot of money having competed at lower levels already with a lot of their own money (or have a famous surname). Price kids out of karting 20 years ago and none of our current F1 champions are even racing drivers - indeed the best who'd still be in it is Pastor Maldonado, and do you know just how many F1 accidents you could prevent by banning Pastor Maldonado?
As for your examples, Bianchi's injury came from sustaining a ludicrous deceleration, Senna's death could have been prevented with HANS and a higher cockpit (which is why modern cars have this), Campos's car rode a concrete wall upside down and it's unlikely a lid would have saved him and Krossnoff's crash was an absolute plane crash that nothing could have prevented - the car and the driver were utterly obliterated. I dare anyone to watch that and come back with "a closed cockpit would have saved him".
 
Justin Wilson hit debris from someone else's accident several seconds before and several hundreds of yards after the initial point of impact. That's way beyond a million to one chance - I doubt any of us could throw a projectile into a helmet of an open-cockpit car going past at 200mph even if we spent all day at it. There is simply no reasonable precaution one could take to prevent this from happening - and indeed we shouldn't be seeking to mitigate million to one chances because it's unlikely they'll ever happen again.

On the face of it, closed cockpits would have prevented Wilson's and Surtees' deaths and Massa's head injury, but at what cost? Before you leap in and yell about how much a driver's life is worth and how much money F1 makes (or Indycar) you need to consider that it's not just F1/IndyCar - or F2 in the case of Surtees. If you're banning open cockpits you need to address LMP1/2, GP2, GP3, F3, F3.5/WSR, F4, Formula E, Libre, SuperFormula, Formula Ford, TRS - all the way down to karting. You'll need to significantly alter vehicle structures, which costs a lot of money and it affects racing at all levels. Motorsports is already extremely expensive and pretty much the playground either of people with a lot of money or with sufficient talent to attract a lot of money having competed at lower levels already with a lot of their own money (or have a famous surname). Price kids out of karting 20 years ago and none of our current F1 champions are even racing drivers - indeed the best who'd still be in it is Pastor Maldonado, and do you know just how many F1 accidents you could prevent by banning Pastor Maldonado?


We either accept that we can prevent with legislation and the occasional piece of hardware change (such as HANS - which will be compulsory in UK motorsport on 1/1/2016) the majority of likely accidents that could cause serious injury and not prevent million to one shots that cause a death every 20 years or so, or we end up with Pastor Maldonado as the best driver in the world.

Famine, I think if you get a race car hitting a wall at high speed and exploding into pieces that fly everywhere, and you have a pack of cars following, the chances that many of them get hit by flying debris is very high, not even close to "million to one". Of course the chances that at least ONE piece of said debris hits ONE of these following pack of cars and hits it exactly at the only exposed part of a driver's body is smaller, but then again I wouldn't put it as a "million to one" chance.

About costs and coming down the racing ladder, I think you are being too "black or white" in your judgement. As an example, you should take karting out of the equation, as far as I know they don't have seat belts yet, so obviously the requirements for safety rules and devices are measured against the need for them and the need for them is evaluated according to the specifics of each series and how dangerous they may be.

I don't think the top tiers of open wheel motorsports should neglect the deaths caused by blows to helmets in the last few years. It's not once every 20 years.
 
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