Felipe Massa’s accident in Hungary two years ago led the FIA Institute to start work on ways to prevent injury when drivers are faced with flying debris. The tests involved firing a Formula 1 wheel and tyre from a compressed nitrogen canon into a canopy manufactured from aerospace-spec polycarbonate and used on the F-16 fighter jet. The impact speed was measured at 140 mph. The canopy deflected the wheel without any permanent deformation. While the idea is to protect drivers from flying debris, there are a number of serious drawbacks that must be taken into account, including visibility, optical quality, ventilation, cleaning, access and emergency egress. In addition questions must also be asked about what happens to the debris after an impact and whether using cockpits would mean more incidents in which debris was propelled over the existing debris fencing. The research programme is ongoing.
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joeblogsf1 
Do we really need that anyways?
We had 2 freak accidents within a short time. Young Surtees lost his live and Massa did come close.
But with thousands of open wheel races each year around the globe. How many times does a driver really get hit by something with serious consequences.
In all my years of following racing (since at least 1989) I can recall only 3 instances. Surtees, Massa and Lyn St. James. And the last one was only KO’d by it If I recall correctly.
It’s tragic what happend to Surtees but let’s not go overboard with safety precautions.
If they want 100% safe racing, let them drive in games like iRacing. Then again, they might get Repetitive strain injury
Well if a driver is decapitated by another car, as we have nearly seen a few times, that should speed things up a bit.
That wouldn’t be open-cockpit racing anymore… don’t u think?
I saw the video of the testing and while impressive, what do one of those canopies cost? As far as egress, use a small charge to blow the bolts as happens on a fighter jet?
Presumably they have solved the problem of the inside surface of the canopy shattering and projecting splinters as were suffered by many pilots and crew in WW2.
Anyway surely all this has been researched by the LMS guys, why does it need to be done again??
I read about this in autosport, I think it said the wheel landed a mile away ??
Here’s a link to the video of the testing on YouTube. Very interesting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e87HIlOIYFA
JYS started the saftey crusade and it was much needed. All of what has been done is for the good of the sport. Closed cockpit F1 racing……………………
There av’in a laff mate.
Perhaps they should enclose the wheels as well! When the danger is removed from F1, I am afraid it’ll lose much of the appeal.
So what’d happen if a car overturned? How would the driver get out? I suppose the FIA is researching enclosures for the driver to say they looked into it. It seems a little silly.
Oh no! This is a subject that always gets me started. I remember being so angry that my beloved circuits were torn apart after 1994 and I thought popping a lid on the driver could have saved at least a few of them. So here goes my annual rant on this subject…
Luckily helmet designs have progressed since Senna’s loss, but ultimately the sport changed most of the tracks and every single car without ever bothering to cover the driver. Ayrton had no injuries aside from the debris from his own car striking his helmet. The whole sport was turned on its head to preserve a teeny-tiny cockpit opening that wouldn’t be missed for a second if it went. Well, certainly not by me.
This FIA test raises questions and answers them. Firstly to answer a question, vision can’t be too badly affected or the aforementioned jet fighter wouldn’t have a canopy. Secondly I would like to ask, how can Le Mans cars work if there are any doubts over the visibility of a closed-cockpit car? Especially at night and in bad weather? I would also like to know how on Earth the bright folk of Formula One can’t figure out how to solve the problem of access?
Mdewals, you can’t called Massa’s and Surtees’ accidents ‘freaks’. Ayrton was taken from us the same way too. Martin Brundle has said he was never the same after Verstappen landed on his head. We so nearly lost Michael Schumacher last year.
Khaled Hassan, it may go by the name of open-cockpit racing on the odd occasion but to most people it is single-seaters, formula racing or grand prix racing. Surely an open cockpit isn’t the defining feature of such a car?
Of course this is the ‘tradition’ argument. Well, if it’s tradition that you want you are watching the worst possible sport for it. The only true tradition in Formula One is progress. Were engines in the front traditional? As much as a cockpit opening is, yes. Was a lack of electronics traditional? Ditto. And on it goes. Even something as fundamental as four wheels briefly appeared to be going out of vogue…
In my mind saying that F1 would be poorer for covering the drivers head isn’t too far away from saying that you can’t wait for one of their heads to finally fall off. Oh, OK, that’s a bit extreme. But it is certainly comparable to those who in the past have put down safety innovations such as seat-belts, armco, run-off, stronger fuel tanks and such like. How stupid do those folk look through our modern eyes? There will still be plenty of danger in F1 without open cockpits.
Right, finished. Thanks!
I believe that with a canopy system, no matter how well engineered and tested, there will also be a few freak glitches or a few oversights. These mistakes have the potential to turn more common problems into enormous distasters, such as drivers being stuck inside burning cars, or canopies ejecting when they aren’t supposed to, etc. One only need look at the Liberty Bell 7 or Apollo 1 mission to see that no matter how seemingly well thought-out a hatch or egress system is, problems will occur. Even NASA had “oops we didn’t think that could happen” moments. I’m not sure the risks and complications of a canopy system outweigh the risk of the infrequent accidents the sport already has.
My understanding of this situation might be a little off, but wasn’t Alonso’s DRS opening at the wrong track location a few races ago? What if that had been an emergency canopy-eject system malfunctioning?
Forgot to ask if the wheel was spinning, if so the kinetic energy involved becomes enormous. Further to that any attempt to arrest the spin ie by hitting the canopy or anything else immediately starts precession and the wheel then “weaves”, If the wheel then hits something else it may change it’s trajectory dramatically.
If the wheel was not spinning then the test was unrealistic. But again the LMS people will have done this already.
I imagine that F1 cars would end up looking a lot like the Adrian Newey designed Red Bull X1 if this were to be implemented. It would be very exciting to see this cars actually make into the real world, but It does however seem like this is a solution that creates more safety concerns that the initial problem it’s meant to resolve.
I mean t to write “these cars” as opposed to “this cars”….posted prematurelly
I foresee more problem than benefit with enclosed cockpit (heat, egress, etc). I think the “windscreen” which has disappeared in the aero battles, combined the current bolstered cockpit would prove more than satisfactory. (ie translucent barrier with similar impact character)
Yes, it’s such a shame we don’t see people dying so much in F1 these days.
Of course the wheels should be enclosed. The only thing that aerodynamicist’s say that I can understand is “the wheels are a nightmare” Why does it have to be open wheel, or whatever? If you want tradition join the MCC or something.
As long as it’s called F1, it’s F1 right?
No, if the wheels are enclosed and the car has a lid on it, I would call it sports car racing…
Personally I don’t see a problem with it. Open wheel racing is more than just having your head sticking out above the windscreen. It didn’t impact Le Mans where there were open and closed cockpit cars competing against each other.
My preliminary thought is that this is quite silly from a risk management perspective. I’m sure some one with the stats could work out the formula but based on my 20 something years watching open cockpit motor racing the likelihood (amount of races in history Vs. amount of incidents of Massa’s type) is quite low and the consequence is also low (most likely consequence, not worst case consequence) due to existing controls such as helmet, HANS etc. If putting in place further controls because of silly damage control, knee jerk reaction bureaucratic freaks only heightens the risk of other hazards… Well it’s just all gone mad over a risk that was quite low to begin with!
A lot of people blame safety people for this sort of over-the-topness, but are wrong to do so. It’s people in much higher places that know nothing about safety and risk that force safety people to come up with these things. Everyone’s always answering to someone else a little higher then themselves, and they are always asking, “so, what are we doing about this?”. This ends up going down the food chain till it rests on the shoulders of the safety person to “do something”, even if it is not really necessary for something to be done due to the inherently low risk.
All management see is there is an accident, perhaps a very public accident, something HAS to be done- we HAVE to be seen to be ATTEMPTING to improve.
This is not safety gone mad – its bureaucrats!
mdewals:
Senna? Didn’t he get hit by his own wheel??
If they solve the issue of emergency egress (especially in case of fire) I wouldn’t be bothered by closed cockpits.
Having more or less crashworthiness adds nothing to my enjoyment of motorsport – I do think it’s important to be able to lose control and crash, otherwise it gets boring, but those crashes should be as safe as practicable.
I wonder if an over head roll cage similar to what is used on Top Fuel drag cars would be a better option. It wouldn’t prevent an incident like Massa’s, but would protect a drivers head against flying wheels, and cars.
How far do we take safety until the face of F1 is nothing like it should be? I love F1 at the moment, exciting, brilliant much to talk and blog about. Of course we can make it safer and safer and safer………but at what cost. Isn’t it safe enough already? Cockpits? No thankyou. Ps just saw the 3 hour long blu ray Senna film….big big thanks to the guys who made it. Respect
It’s absurd. Drivers get hit by debris and sometimes unfortunately killed by wheels and suspension parts. It happens at every level of open wheel racing and used to be called an accepted risk.
It happened to a friend of mine and it left people devastated but accepting that nothing on earth would have prevented him from getting in the cockpit on that day – or any other for that matter.
The FIA really ought to find better things to do with its time and money than Canute-like attempts to legslate death out of existence. We’ve already watched the great circuits of the world get watered-down to a vague outline lost amid the run-off or become infested with chicanes.
If risk is something that competitors find abhorrent then why do so many motorcyclists believe that competing in the Isle of Man TT is one of life’s essentials? About three of them pay the ultimate price for doing so year-in, year-out – and yet what sort of response would they give you if you gave them acres of run-off and a bulletproof bubble around their bikes?
Exactly!
Autosport reported this this week and said that the wheel shot in the air and finally came to a rest about a mile away. That’s good for the driver but not quite so good for the crowd, the last thing we want is the wheels to shoot off into a grandstand.
F1’s always evolving, I don’t have a problem with closed cockpits (I love the LMPS cars and always wanted a Group C merc), I’m just not convinced that they’re safer.
Say… Those NASCAR cars don’t seem to have this problem, do they?
For me the enclosed cockpit doesn’t make it sportscar racing as the cockpit would not change the way drivers raced. However enclosed wheels are a totally different matter. Open wheels do define how drivers race as they cannot rub or push like in touring cars or stock cars. That is why I would happily see a lid put on a driver (I like the drag racing roll cage Pinball, good compromise) but I could understand why people would hesitate at open wheels, it would change the fundamental way to go racing.
“joesaward
No, if the wheels are enclosed and the car has a lid on it, I would call it sports car racing…”
Indeed, if you start putting canopies on and closing the wheels in, what do you have? Basically, an LMP-1 Sports Prototype. The Audis and Peugeots look rather like a closed-wheel/cockpit F1 car, they’re a similar size and so on, its not far off really.
As a few people have said, these types of serious incidents are very rare. RaceOfTwoWorlds; whilst I commend you on not being a robot, the emotive language you use (“taken from us”, “lost” etc) clouds the issue somewhat. Ratzenburger and Senna were the first deaths in a while, and whilst Massa probably came close, we fortunately haven’t had any deaths, many serious injuries or even hospitalisations in F1 since. Perhaps we are overdue but hopefully safety has moved the game on far enough.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I found some irony in Kubica being injured in a rally car by a piece of road armco, considering he does however many miles a year at a way higher average speed around circuits and survived that spectacular accident at Montreal in 2007 (And before anyone says anything, finding irony is not the same as finding it funny).
I didn’t see the FIA or anyone else kicking up a fuss about Kubica’s rally accident by enforcing thick ballistic steel bulkheads/firewalls or whatever; same as I don’t see the FIM continually trying to make MotoGP and WSB any safer above and beyond the reasonable, because they recognise there is inherent risk in the sport. To me, a canopy on an F1 car is like fitting stabilisers to motorbikes.
If I were an F1 driver, and I must admit I am not, I would personally prefer not to get killed at work if possible.
Any professional drivers on the forum, please let us know if you would like your industry to halt the progress of safety, and if in fact you would prefer the sport to be more dangerous like some of our fellow commentors.
Perhaps as well as artificial rain we could have artificial debris blasted at the cars, and if a driver disobeyed team orders his car could be blown up?
Is it formula 1 or not? As in number one, the best? Safety??
“wanted – up and coming drivers. Our new slogan, drive F1, get killed”
If you want carnage be an ambulance driver, or join an emergency ward etc.
Also, no matter how safe the cars are, we still have M Schumacher trying to put his old mate Ruebens in the wall and L Hamilton crashing into everybody etc.
In the instance of “Nearly losing Schumacher”, and Webber’s flying lesson at Valencia, this could be helped by sanctioning a return to low noses. It would also make the cars look much better!
As for canopies, as a regular F1 trackside attendee, I shudder at wheels etc bouncing off cars into spectator areas. One of the often forgotten points about F1 safety is that spectators should come first. They often *do not* know the risk they are taking…
The main arguments against canopies are tradition, visibility, and being trapped in a rollover/fire situation.
The only way I can think of rectifying that would be for the surivial cell to become a detachable pod from the rest of the car. It can be shielded and have an oxygen supply. In a fire/rollover the pod can be released from the chassis, much like an ejector seat (just with mcuh less velocity), and can then be manhandled by support/medical staff until the driver can be extricated.
I personally don’t like the idea of closed cockpits, but progress is progress. And I am sure the collective brains of F1 could find an intelligent and elegant solution to driver extrication.
Having now seen the video, (thanks for posting the link Chad) it was a tyre side-wall impact to the centre front of the canopy. The tyre was inclined so that the contact surface was parallel to that of the canopy.
This layout had the maximum possible surface area in contact thus minimising the initial point impact as much as possible ie the possibility of penetration.
However the bad one will come when the wheel has broken free at say 160 kph rolled forward and hit a barrier, this will send it up almost vertically but not quite and still spinning, if another car arrives under it there will be a compound impact, with the mass of the wheel dropping on the next car and assuming a canopy is fitted to it it will need to absorb not only the effect of the vertical fall and the speed of the car hitting it but also the remainder of the rotational momentum which could be greater than the other two put together.
A roll cage would only prevent a few types of accidents, like wheel impacts, which I agree are some of the most dangerous. But a roll cage probably would not have changed anything in Massa’s incident unless the gaps in the cage were as small as those on a hockey goalie’s helmet. Also, I would argue that a cage would not have made a difference had Schumacher been struck by Liuzzi’s nose in Abu Dhabi. The roll cage would have caused the carbon to tear and cause sharp but still very rigid segments to protrude into the driver’s area, instead of an entire blunt nose.
Ben, I think emotive language is called for – it is lives we are talking about. And the FIA did look at carbon fibre safety cells and drivers placed in tandem down the centre of the car after Michael Park’s death, though that came to naught, and they’ve used Kubica’s horror crash to help raise awareness of road safety as it was a piece of supposed safety technology on a public road that caused his injury.
Rallying, like F1, will always have its dangers but there is no shame in trying minimise risk. Often safety developments in motorsport can have a profound impact on the road too, so it’s always worth a little analysis when things go wrong.
I do agree with yourself and others that simply replicating Le Mans cars in formula racing is the solution, however fantastic those machines may be. Although F1 could learn a thing or two from the ACO’s approach to freedom in engine developments, but that’s another matter!
Sorry, left out an important word…
“I do agree with yourself and others that simply replicating Le Mans cars in formula racing is NOT the solution…”
I am delighted to see something is finally being done to protect the heads of racing drivers. It is almost 30 years since rules were brought into F1 and the WEC requiring the driver’s feet to be far enough back that they were unlikely to be mangled in an accident. It has always struck me as very odd that so much effort was made to save the driver’s feet while leaving the head exposed. That doesn’t seem to be the order of priority that I would like to apply to my body parts.
I have long argued that F1 should have cages over the driver’s head like a top fuel dragster with a sizeable, reinforced windscreen in front of the driver’s head. I see no reason why that could not be done in next year’s cars. I like the idea of the fighter canopy if it can be made to work properly just as I would be happy to see the wheels enclosed.
I don’t know why but the reaction to any new safety in the sport always takes me by surprise even though the reaction is always the same. It is 45 years since Jackie Stewart started his safety campaign and while we now ridicule the response he received, yet again with this article we see the same responses. I will never understand F1 fans. They want innovation provided nothing changes and any change regardless how small means F1 is not F1 any more.
I have seen more than enough drivers die and I have never felt I gained anything by a single death yet still we have people saying that the sport should not be too safe and the powers that be should use their efforts to do something other than improve safety. I would like someone to tell me what I have missed. What should I have gained by watching Senna die? My view is I lost a lot the day he died. I missed watching him race for the next few seasons and what he would have done when he retired. What should I have gained watching Gilles Villeneuve die? I lost the opportunity to see him take the 1982 world title and move to McLaren the following year where he would have been mighty in John Barnard’s TAG engined cars. I really would like someone to explain to me what is so great about watching men die. How many drivers per year should be killed for optimum entertainment?
When I watched Lewis Hamilton make his overtaking move at Copse on a soaking wet track a week ago I was marvelling at his car control and skill not at the level of risk he was taking. Motor racing to me is like any other sport in that the enjoyment comes from admiring the skill not from watching someone risk death. Would David Beckham’s free kicks have been better if he risked death if he missed the goal? Are the achievements of Roger Federer or Tiger Woods somehow less because they were achieved without risking life and limb? Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees just became the 28th player in baseball history to score 3000 base hits. Maybe had pitchers been throwing hand grenades rather than baseballs at him his achievement would have been more worthy and his skills greater?
We have not just had two freak accidents. David Coulthard came very close to decapitating Alex Wurz in Melbourne a couple of years ago. Pedro Diniz came close to very serious injury upside down in a gravel trap in Germany a few years before that. Would Francois Cevert’s accident have proved fatal had proper head protection been fitted to his Tyrrell at Watkins Glen in 1973? There are hundreds of examples of accidents where head injury happened or could have happened. Tom Pryce may not have been killed at Kyalami when he hit the marshal crossing the track for example.
It’s all very well for people to say how much better helmet design is but a helmet is attached to a head which is balanced on a very fragile human spinal column. It takes very little load for the spinal column to suffer serious damage. Helmets should not be designed like crash structures and be expected to handle a particular load. Helmets should be as capable as possible but the aim should always be that nothing goes anywhere near them.
The comment on Liberty Bell 7 and AS204 (renamed Apollo 1 after the deaths of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee) is disingenuous as these happened in the 1960s with 1950s technology. There may have been a NASA budget involved but the one thing that was clear after the AS204 fire was that safety was barely considered in the original Apollo design. When was the last time anyone heard of an aeroplane canopy not separating?
Anyone who thinks that enclosing the driver and wheels will take all the danger out of the sport doesn’t know what they are talking about. How many drivers have been killed in sportscars over the years? Have a look at the video of Allan McNish’s crash at Le Mans a few weeks ago and see how close that came to disaster. And if enclosing the wheels meansF1is notF1 any more then F1 stopped being F1 56 years ago when Mercedes did it. Maybe we should knock a few wins off Fangio’s total?
Thanks Steven. I agree 100% with your thoughts on the need for safety. I guess the point I was trying to make about the Apollo 1 fire needs further explaining. The specific problem with the system was that he cabin hatch opened inward, which seemed perfectly fine under normal operating circumstances. But once the fire broke out and the pressure inside the spacecraft increased, opening the door became impossible. So my point is that any safety system needs to be designed and proven in the context of nearly any conceivable failure, as well as collections of simultaneous failures. How will a canopy ejection system work when a car is inverted and laying in the gravel? What risks does a deforming canopy pose to a driver’s head when the car sustains a front-end collision, and will the release mechanism still function? If the air supply system to the cockpit is an active system, like the drink bottle, what will happen in an electrical failure? (I’m not asking you or anyone in particular to tell me these answers, I’m just clarifying some questions the FIA needs to research). Airplane ejections need to be performed at certain minimum altitudes or they do more harm than good, what will be the limitations on an F1 canopy system?
I’m not saying these systems aren’t worth pursuing, quite the contrary really, but there is a certain cusp where the benefits of the systems outweigh the new risks they present, and the FIA must reach and exceed that point in its understanding. To do so means looking at situations with multiple simultaneous failures, and asking many more questions. Anything less is going to create new, unexpected problems that will only seem obvious in retrospect. Firing a tyre at a canopy is a commendable start, now what next?
This research by the FIA is a big step in the right direction – no doubt about it.
“No, if the wheels are enclosed and the car has a lid on it, I would call it sports car racing…”
Joe, isn’t the life of a human being infinitely more important than losing the open wheels and open cockpit of Formula racing? Character is required, but we’ve got to draw the line between safety and character. We’ve had close wheel racing cars in Formula 1 too, isn’t it?
Risking human life is barbaric and too bad that F1 had allowed the death toll to increase all through these years culminating in the 1994 Imola tragedies. But the crashes of Massa, Henry Surtees and the recent Monaco GP incidents show that we’re not out of the woods yet. The transparent polycarbonate cover FIA is researching on is a good idea as it make the driver’s head visible.
But our attitude should be – whatever it takes. Safety is No: 1, so whether the sport will lose its uniqueness is only a secondary issue as there are precious lives on the line. Lives on whom other lives depend – their loved ones, friends and family, etc. We can’t let them risk it (when there are people dying from strife and hunger) just for the sake of our perception of what F1 should be. These are civilized times.
That’s not to say that I don’t agree with you. I’d hate to have closed wheels and closed cockpit too, but if safety dictates it, so be it.
Nick Edmo, why don’t you get into a time machine and go back to the age of the Roman gladiators? Enter reality, mate! Safety is NEVER ENOUGH.
Fantastic comment Steven, couldn’t agree more. Tim, I agree that the idea of a canopy rather than a more standard cockpit is too fraught with problems as you say, that’s why I’m shocked the FIA aren’t simply looking at existing enclosed race cars as a starting point. An average car doesn’t need oxygen and ejector seats! As Steven says, a rudimentary cage would do the trick.
Tim,
I understand your point about Apollo 1 although I hate that AS204 was changed to Apollo 1 after the fire. This was to suggest that somehow it was a real mission rather than a simulation so 3 deaths were not such a disaster. I am sure it made someone happier but it was way too much like cynical manipulation of the facts for me. Quite how they decided they could have Apollo 1 then not have a manned flight till Apollo 7 is beyond me. It was also this re-writing of history that led to Apollo 13 having the ‘unlucky’ number when really it should have been called Apollo 7. Anyway all of that is a little off topic.
I totally agree with the thought process on how new safety devices should be developed. It can never be a good idea to look at a few specific cases and react to those. Where the FIA has always shown a weakness is in imagination and anticipating how people will react to something new. We see it all the time when downforce is reduced by 80% yet 3 months later the teams have gained back most of what has been lost. The FIA need people who can make a suggestion about what should be done AND look at the implications of that suggestion before rushing it into play only for it to have a range of unintended consequences. It goes without saying that this matters most where safety is concerned. You only have to look at the history of American football to see how padding and helmets have developed to protect the players. The unintended consequence being players felt free to use their heads as weapons to tackle an opposing player. Now there are all sorts of new rules on how they are allowed to tackle and surprise surprise there is a whole chorus of football isn’t football any more. Apparently it was only real football when players with concussion played on and made their injuries far worse or unprotected players were harpooned by the head of a 300lb man. It’s not just some F1 fans who like to see their heroes put at needless risk.