For as long as I can remember I have been arguing that drivers' heads should be protected a lot better than they are. 30 years ago when designers had gone through a phase of moving the driver forward in the car, we ended up with the driver's feet ahead of the front axle line. This meant that in the event of an accident the driver ran the risk of serious lower leg injuries. Eventually the technical regulations were modified so that the driver's feet had to be behind the front axle line and a strengthened 'footbox' had to be installed. Because of this accidents that would have resulted in serious injury before became completely survivable.
Of course, after this happened in Formula One it spread to other classes. Group C sportscars were hugely popular at the time and even looked like threatening the supremacy of F1. The most successful and most common car was the Porsche 956 which had the driver sitting in what was known at the time as a cab forward position.
Porsche then had to introduce the 962 which to all intents and purposes was identical except that the driver sat further back. Indeed two of the Rothmans-sponsored factory cars sat side by side at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and it was very difficult to spot any difference.
It has always struck me as crazy that so much effort was put into protecting the driver's feet and legs while leaving his head exposed. It is beyond me how it is still acceptable to put the head at such risk when 30 years ago it was not acceptable to put his feet at less risk.
Risk assessment
Most people, when they decide to jump in a racing car, don't appear to give any consideration to the risks they are about to take. When I decided I was going to try racing many years ago I sat down and worked out all the things that could go wrong and seriously considered whether I was really prepared to take the risk. Nothing focuses the mind like sitting contemplating what it would be like to die in a race car or worse - what it would be like to end up paralysed from the neck down. I am a firm believer in the Jackie Stewart theory that dying in a racing car would be no big deal because you would be so busy trying to rescue the situation to worry about the consequences. On the other hand going from young, fit and healthy to not being able to control any part of your body would be a huge problem. I can't help thinking certain F1 drivers would be a lot less crash happy if they thought about what could go wrong in the detail I did.
When I looked at the kind of accidents that could happen the one thing that worried me was the idea of going face first into something. There have been accidents in the past like those that killed François Cevert and Gerry Birrell where they went head on into armco and because the barrier had not been installed properly the bottom rail gave way when their cars hit it and they hit the top rail with their heads. I figured by the time I was looking at going racing that barriers would be properly constructed so the only way I could hit it face first was to get airborne and flip and have the nose of the car clear the barrier. Fortunately in the limited time I spent in a racing car I never got airborne and never had to watch a barrier come at my face.
Everyone is familiar with some recent accidents where something came in contact with the driver's head injuring or killing them. Henry Surtees was hit and killed by a loose wheel. Many of us will remember watching Felipe Massa's Hungarian accident happening live on TV when he was hit on the forehead by a spring. Now we have had María de Villota's testing accident where in a very low speed crash her head came in contact with the tail lift of a truck.
Of course there have been many other accidents throughout the history of F1 where better head protection could have resulted in the driver not being killed. Ayrton Senna was killed when a suspension arm pierced his helmet. Further back there was Tom Pryce's crash in South Africa where a young marshal ran across the track with a fire extinguisher and was hit by the car and Pryce was hit in the face by the extinguisher at 150 mph. Both were killed instantly. And of course those of us who watched the Indycar race in Las Vegas last year will never forget the enormous accident that ended it. Nor will we forget the drivers like Will Power who were saved from serious head injury and Dan Wheldon who was not.
On the other hand we have the drivers who have suffered serious leg injuries who all seem able to have successful lives with their leg injuries apparently not holding them back at all. Johnny Herbert was on his way to a stellar F1 career when at Brands Hatch in 1988 Gregor Foitek collided with him causing horrific leg injuries. Despite his initial problems in F1, and the fact that he was never the same driver after the accident, his life has not been negatively affected by his injuries. His Sky colleague Martin Brundle, as he reminded us on race day at Silverstone, has Professor Sid Watkins to thank for still having a left foot but even after his accident he drove 150 GPs and won the Sportscar World Championship and the Le Mans 24 hours. Indeed he raced at Le Mans a few weeks ago and has since signed up for other races.
Martin Donnelly is still around despite his Lotus splitting in half and dumping him on the track. He still walks very badly as a result of his leg injuries and while he never sat in an F1 car after that day he has raced in other classes. Of course no discussion on racing leg injuries would be complete without mentioning the living inspiration that is Alex Zanardi. Most people who had suffered injuries like he did would have crumbled. Instead he drove himself and his family home from the hospital in a car with special hand controls. Since then he has won marathons and will represent Italy in the Paralympics. Beyond all his other achievements Zanardi, it is rumoured, even brought a tear to the eye of Michael Schumacher and everyone else in the room at the FIA presentation.
Starting at the top
Since the changes made to protect the legs of drivers have been such an overwhelming success we need to consider what could be done to make the heads of drivers equally safe. For me the first thing that has to be considered is crash helmets. While it is only right that everything possible should be done to make the helmets as strong as possible it has to be remembered that in the end the helmet and the head inside it are perched on a tiny little bone in the neck that is not designed to take any kind of load. So the helmet is really the last line of protection rather than the first. So somehow we need to design something to protect the crash helmet.
The helmet is really the last line of protection rather than the first. We need to design something to protect the crash helmet.
The FIA has carried out tests on fighter plane canopies. If it was possible to create a canopy that was capable of stopping items like wheels, springs etc from coming in contact with the driver's head it would be a huge advance. Unfortunately it is a very complex exercise to make a canopy capable of dealing with all the possible accidents.
I think a canopy will not work without some arrangement of bars inside it. Canopies are fine on fighter jets but there if something goes wrong the pilot detaches the canopy and parachutes (hopefully) safely to the ground. F1 drivers do not have that option.
I have always believed that something like the head protection of a Top Fuel dragster should be incorporated into F1 and other cars. If Henry Surtees had been in a car with such a device the wheel that killed him would simply have bounced off. This type of roll cage does a very good job of protecting the top and sides of the head but not the front. I would expect that it is a comparatively simple matter to fit a canopy or screen to the front of the bars to make a very strong protector for the front of the driver's head.
Of course protecting the head is only part of what any car modification would have to do. Whatever device or construction that you add has to have near total structural integrity so that it does not deform at all because after the accident the driver still has to be able to get out of the car in 5 seconds. Canopies are a bit like gullwing doors on a road car. They look very cool, they have certain advantages but if you are upside down in a car fitted with either you are screwed. There is no way for you to get out. For me something like the dragster cage with a very strong windscreen on a front roll hoop would be the best option.
Alternatively of course we could go the whole way and put a roof on the cars. Gordon Murray who has designed the odd championship winning car and the revolutionary McLaren F1 road car long ago proposed a new F1 formula which replaced the current open cars with small coupés. I think there are a great many advantages to the F1 coupé including greatly improved driver head safety.
Of course there will always be people who will argue that civilisation will end if the heads of F1 drivers are not exposed or that F1 would not be F1 if a roof was put on the car. We have heard these arguments in the past over a range of things but F1 still seems to be F1 as far as I can tell and the same would be true if the cars had roofs or the heads of the drivers were protected in any other way.
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Couldn't agree more. I can't stand hearing that open cockpits and exposed wheels are integral to the sport. The only traditions in F1 are speed, competition, technology and change.
Great article, Steven. The modified dragster roll cage that you propose sounds like a shorter, tighter version of the cage around a sprint car cockpit. Even some open-wheel, formula style racing school cars have extra bars for driver protection. There are no technological barriers to implementing such a structure on an F1 car. The only barrier is political will.
I would also like to add that the five second number to exit the cockpit is strictly arbitrary and easily changed or even eliminated completely. The rule does not improve/increase driver safety (i.e. is five seconds safer than six? four safer than five? what is the safest exit time?). It is merely a simple metric to satisfy the notion that the cockpit should be easy to exit quickly (and I think it came up in the late 80's to ensure that no team was gaining any advantage by packing the driver in too tightly). Reconsidering these things is part of the "political will" dilemma.
Now, do you feel like tackling the problem lately of all those broken backs? Anthony Davidson is the most recent example. Justin Wilson and Pippa Mann broke theirs last year. The bottoms of the cars possess vulnerabilities, too... (and we've known it for far too long).
From the traditional aspect how do you compare Formula 1 to any other form of motorsport? All forms of motorsport are in some way measured in speed and by nature have competition, use technology to obtain their goals and go thru change.
So how do you tell F1 from all other forms of motorsport without saying that it is open-cockpit and open wheel racing? If someone already knows about similar racing formats like indycar, then you can get into the more technical aspects like no refueling, kers and whatnot... Sorry, Formula 1 has had open cockpits and open wheels since it "offically" started in 1950, so they are integal (in that it makes it different) to the sport.
But I do see the logic of having closed cockpits and wheel wells for safety reasons. I would just rather close down the series completly and restart it as something else, like the racing that existed before 1950 was renamed "The World Championship" or "Formula 1" or whatever, but for whatever reason, drivers like Fangio, Fangia and Farnia who raced before 1950, do not have anything recorded as part of the offical history of F1 from before 1950.
So if Schuie wins a driver's title in this closed cockpit series, he is still a 7x WDC F1 driver and a "Closed-cockpit" series winner, not an 8x F1 champion, understand?
So have closed cockpit racing. Just pull the plug on F1 and use a differnet name for this closed cockpit series.
E (For European) Association of Stock Car Racing? (EASCAR for short?).
You only have to see how F1 cars have changed to see that there is nothing integral about an F1 car - including the number of wheels!
Interesting thoughts... but my opinion is the F1 should stay open cockpit , open wheeled racing. You could argue that using the examples you gave that the wheel that hit henry should never have become separated from its car, make wheel tethers stronger first ? The truck that Maria hit, that should never have been parked where it was, make safety better at tests... Massa's incident, freak accident, if the part on the Brawn hadn't failed or had a slightly different path the accident would never have happened. We will never make F1 safe, make everything else as safe as is reasonably practical first before thinking of closed cockpits and roll cages...
Problem is, you're identifying the problem in hindsight. Fixing the Brawn part better, moving the Marussia truck, make wheel tethers even stronger (which eventually makes the bodywork they're attached to the weak point instead.) Cages/canopies could help in situations we've yet to think of.
Putting the grandstand over the run-off at the end of F1's longest straight may come to look like a stupid idea one day. "This will add more excitement and thrills to the race," according to Hamed Al Harthi, spokesman for the Yas Marina Circuit.
For this argument all you have to do is look at Allan McNish's crash at LeMans last year. In an open cockpit car that same crash would have either killed, or seriously injured him.
To that statement I present you the Mercedes W196 Streamliner driven by Fangio in 1954.
en.wikipedia.org/…des_W196_Wien.jpg
I agree.
Steven's post as usual is spot on.
So what you're saying is, instead of being proactive and making things safer for the driver's head, we should be reactive and only clean up the mess afterwards? As for the comment in bold, I'm sorry, but if other industries can strive to become 'incident free', then why not F1?
That sort of comment goes along with those made back in the 50's and 60's along the lines of "Why change the circuits/cars? That's how they've always been".
I am sorry, but for all the safety work done in F1, the driver's head is by far the weakest link, so to speak. Just because F1 has always had open cockpits doesn't mean they always have to.
In my opinion we have been very lucky and the warning signs have been there for ages. I just hope we act before it is too late...
It's a tricky business because you have to balance (as you said) protecting the cockpit area while not hindering the drivers' ability to escape the vehicle in a hurry. And as it stands, the driver is more likely to get stuck upside down or wedged in a tyre barrier or against another car than he is to be smacked in the face with something. So unless you basically redesign the whole formula philosophy, it's always going to be a compromise.
If you think about the velocity of the car, there is a very small scenario window that will end up with something hitting the driver in the head anyway as the helmet area is so small and the speed is so fast that you'll need a pretty coincidental angle of strike to end up hitting the helmet. Maybe narrowing this window is a way to go?
I think there has to be a number to stop people building a car that it takes 2 minutes to escape from.
All sportscars originally were open topped but closed cars came along. Sportscars are still sportscars. Do we discount everyone who has won LeMans in a closed car? Do we discount everyone who won in F1 with slick tyres or in cars with wings because those were not in F1 originally?
It's not exactly practical to control every other possible factor and try to guarantee that nothing will ever come in contact with a driver's head. Even if you do that you still have deal with what happens if someone lands on his head and his roll hoop snaps off like Pedro Diniz in the Nurburgring gravel or if someone goes face first into a truck or barrier or seagull.
Or having the cars run under the chicane in Singapore.
You would have thought that people would not put tradition or perceived tradition ahead of safety. That should have gone when Jackie Stewart was running his safety campaign. Tradition is just the result random chance, negotiation and political shenanigans. That is no basis to plan the future direction of the sport.
The motivation for such a number is clear, but that time value is still arbitrary - it does not correspond to some time dependent element of danger. Were the driver injured, and physically unable to exit under their own power, the time to exit the cockpit becomes moot; the time until assistance is rendered then becomes critical.
I'm only going down these lines because safety is forever evolving. The term "safety cell" is used to describe the monocoque. If we put a lid on the monocoque, the cell could evolve into a real "safety capsule". Maybe, if the sport evolves this way, the driver wouldn't be expected (or even need) to exit under their own power. Like the barrels used to go over Niagara Falls? Which leads me to powerboat racing, which has already dealt with this issue.
Things will change. Current ideas may have no relevance to future safety systems.
The only value to the driver getting out quickly is that it lets race control know the driver is OK and they don't need to deploy a safety car or stop the race and it gets the driver away from danger as quickly as possible.
I think whatever the design of the car the driver has to get out quickly. There is the risk of fire even in modern cars. There is the risk of contact with other cars.
To all those who say that this or that is an integral part of the sport and that It wouldn't be formula 1 without it. Look at how much has changed in the past 60-odd years. http://vimeo.com/43233380
Here is an infograph with the cars grouped by decade. http://www.biplaneblues.blogspot.com/
From Racer Magazine, developments in NHRA Top Fuel canopies:
www.racer.com/nhr…y/article/251865/
Great to see the NHRA taking the lead in this. This is the kind of progress we need to see.
F1 needs to start taking the lead in technology like it always claims it does.
I'm a member of the "Silverstone Marshsls Team" and where as I agree with most of this article and must say it is very well written, however on the point of canopy's I have to agree with Christian Horner.
I recently had a visit to the Red Bull factory and put the question of canopy's to him, he agreed that more must be done to protect the drivers head, he did however also say that in his opinion, and I therefore assume RBR's stance is that canopy's aren't the way forward.
As a marshal I'd have to agree, a canopy would severely restrict our access to the driver in the event of a major incident where the driver were not conscious, I do think the "top fuel" cage type arrangement would be a better way forward, even if left open sides and front it would afford protection from large objects breech ing the drivers space, though would probably not have stopped an incident like the one Felipe Massa had.
Certainly more needs to be done and I'm sure the FIA have this work in progress.
Paul,
Could you please elaborate more on a marshal's responsibilities with driver access in this situation?
Perception is reality and image is everything, unfortunately.
“If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with B.S.” ― W.C. Fields.
If anyone is still tuned in, the NHRA canopy is now approved for racing.
www.racer.com/nhr…e/article/254677/
we're always tuned in jim ;)
good to see the device was approved.
I guess this means I need to start watching drag racing seriously now. I guess for drag racing there is not really a huge difference between the safety of a canopy on a Top Fuel car and the roof on a Funny Car. The big difference is the engine is behind the driver in Top Fuel.
A (belated) big thank you for being there.
(The canopy hasn't been raced yet, as far as I know).
To my eyes, the canopy on the Top Fuel car creates/completes the same type of driver enclosure that already exists in the Funny Car body. A picture is worth a thousand words here... There is some sheet metal in the Funny Car body that comes down and defines a driver's compartment.
I think you are right, the Top Fuel canopy gets that car closer to the safety level of the Funny Car. The Funny Car driver is surrounded by a little more structure than the Top Fuel driver.
Still more on the subject! A reader (fourth question on the page) asked veteran Indycar reporter Robin Miller about canopies in Indycar (since they were just approved for drag racing). Robin's reply gives a little history of canopies in Indycar racing. I didn't know that Marshall Teague's fatal accident was in one of these cars.
auto-racing.speed…-mailbag-823//P3/
I was not aware of any of those cars. Given the restricted choice of materials and manufacturing techniques then those canopies would be nowhere near as good in terms of safety or visibility as a modern one. There was a Formula Ford that ran a canopy in the 80s. I am struggling to remember what it was called. I know its name was an anagram of the designer's name but I just can't remember either.
My memory finally cranked into gear. The car was a Prowess and the designer was Hugo Spowers.
www.wikiwirral.co…2_272046_7270.jpg
www.bing.com/imag…E&FORM=IDFRIR
Beautiful! (I like the anagram, too). How did it do? Any good on long straights?
From memory it was utterly hopeless. It certainly didn't sell and I doubt anyone other than the designer raced it.
I'm not surprised. Thanks for sharing it. I look at it and think, "Frontal area vs. drag. Hmmm." It was probably too ambitious in all areas, not just aero.
I didn't want to be too annoying, continually tacking messages on here, but I didn't know if you saw the damage to Sebastien Bourdais' accident at Sonoma? There's a cell-phone photo on the page. Serious forces...
auto-racing.speed…mpact-of-my-life/
anything on topic is good by us.
this also could be interesting: adamcooperf1.com/…ckpit-protection/
We’ve been looking at two avenues, either the full screen, fighter aircraft technology, or some type of set of bars that would exist in front of the driver that would deflect any incoming wheel or a whole car. That one is the one that’s actually more active as a project, so it’s not going to cause a closed cockpit, but it would provide some defence against cars sliding along or landing from above.
(In case you've not come across this) wtf1.co.uk/wp-con…Ferrariclosed.jpg I'm up for cars looking like this mock-up!!
( wtf1.co.uk/underc…ckpit-f1-concept/ )
Post as many comments as you like. I watched that race and saw the accident. Bourdais was uninjured but Josef Newgarden broke a finger in the accident. Bourdais was very lucky though.
I have seen this before. It is total fantasy. The air inlet is on top of the canopy preventing the driver escaping. There is no reason why a car with a canopy could not look a lot better than one without.
Hopefully they will come up with something good and get it on the cars soon
Agreed - in it's current form there are a few flaws in that design, and I'm on board with any change to make the sport safer. At the end of the day, it's F1, it always looks good.
Hahahaha!
Unless some idiot adds red bits to cars that should not have red bits
Are you talking about those Total flashes on the Lotus? Because if you are, then Romain is thinking the same, and did his best to get rid of any trace of them.
Thanks for the link. Cooper's stuff is used by speedtv.com for F1 news, analysis, etc. The article is also there. (Lots of canopy talk post-race. "Trending", yes?)
(Bourdais wasn't uninjured. He just wasn't incapacitated. I caught some video of an interview with him in Baltimore. He was not 100%. Absolutely very lucky.) But did you see the damage to Bourdais' car? I was trying to imagine the interaction of a canopy with the impacts. I'm thinking that a canopy isn't enough. Even more cockpit structure is needed. Maybe I'm naive, but I didn't expect to see that kind of damage, that much damage.
Tony Schumacher raced with the canopy. He won, too!
www.indystar.com/…th-Top-Fuel-title
I am so pleased this happened. It's obviously a lot easier to do this in drag racing but hopefully F1 will take inspiration from this and set ambitious targets rather than just doing something a little better than we already have.
https://www.youtu…tch?v=PFqf7LnYpG8
Thanks for the video link! F1 will do as it chooses on the safety front. But it never hurts to see that front being pushed elsewhere. Eventually, F1 will have to catch up (in whatever area it may lag).
Four Top Fuel drivers will start this season racing with a canopy, including the 2012 champ Antron Brown.
www.racer.com/bro…s/article/280106/
Half-way down, there is this quote:
"The canopy on my racecar is here to stay. It's on there, locked, sealed and delivered," Brown declared. "After driving with it down the racetrack several times and looking back to what I used to race with, it's like, 'I don't want to go back there.'"
He goes on some more. He sounds pretty happy.
I had to read the post and all the comments to remember what we all said 5 months ago.
Fantastic and I bet there are a lot more next year. In 3 or 4 years hopefully all of them sill have canopies.
How often do we see something like that with a safety advance. Lots of objections up front to any change and total stunned amazement looking back at what was normal for the previous few decades after the modification. I am very happy that Antron Brown is making statements like that. Also Antron is a very cool name. Always liked it.
Sorry about that. I didn't mean for it to turn into homework.
I'm betting the canopy cars will have an aero advantage. Getting beat by them will be impetus enough.
All your points are spot-on. He is a cool guy.
It's time that snowmobile racers thought about canopies, too. In case you didn't see this:
Jacques Villeneuve Sr. injured in snowmobile racing crash
www.racer.com/jac…h/article/280727/
I've lost count. How many hospitalizations from sleds is this, now?
(I didn't know how else to get this message to you. I hope that I'm not infringing on any rules/boundaries).
I can't believe even a Villeneuve is racing those things at 59 years old. From the little I have read and seen on the subject the courses are normally at least in part solid ice. Falling from one of those on to ice at the speeds they do is always going to hurt. I hope he recovers well. It is a shame he never had a proper chance at F1 because there are people who saw both brrothers in the junior formulae who were convinced Jacques was better than Gilles.
Unfortunately as with motorbikes I don't see how canopies or driver protection is even an option on a snowmobile
I think you are close enough to the topic not to have broken any rules. We occasionally drift a lot further away. I think when we are looking at safety that it is useful to look at other sports to see how they deal with it. In the past I have used the example of the NFL. To stop their players getting injured helmets and padding was made compulsory and improved to the point where the players felt totally safe to use their heads as weapons. So snowmobile racing is a lot closer to the topic than NFL.
Thanks. I wanted to be sure.
And now this:
www.racer.com/bro…x/article/281223/
Antron loves having a canopy even more, now.
Looks like Antron is running a one man campaign for canopies. I actually watched a bit of the Winternationals but I was doing something else by the time his accident happened. Absolutely great to see a driver turn his car over at 300 mph and have nothing even touch his crash helmet. This is what I have been ranting about for a very long time.
Those top fuel engines have so much power that it is amazing they don't blow more often. Even the most outrageous turbos F1 had in the 80s are like children's toys compared to top fuel motors.
Exactly (for each one)!
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