Spa pile-up renews focus on Formula One safety matters
3 September, 2012
Fernando Alonso attended by marshals after the first corner crash at Spa
Sep.3 (Reuters) The Belgian Grand Prix first turn crash that got Frenchman Romain Grosjean banned for a race has stoked the debate about cockpit safety in Formula One without providing any clearer solution to the problem.
Grosjean’s Lotus lifted into the air and skimmed across the front of championship leader Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari in the first corner pile-up, wrecking his car but fortunately missing the Spaniard’s head.
The incident, blamed squarely on Grosjean’s aggressive driving, was a heart-stopping moment for Ferrari fans and senior team members watching from the pit wall as Alonso took his time getting out of the cockpit amid radio silence.
“We were lucky because nothing hit Fernando on the head,” team boss Stefano Domenicali told reporters in a discussion that also touched on the need for inexperienced young drivers to be punished heavily for failings in the junior categories to ensure they arrive in Formula One with more awareness.
“It was a very risky situation and seeing one car fly over his, a few centimetres above his helmet, left us with our hearts “in our mouths” for a few tenths of a second,” Ferrari technical head Pat Fry said.
Protecting the driver’s head in such incidents with flying cars and debris has long been a concern for Formula One, a sport where the dangers are evident and there is a constant push to improve safety in all areas.
There has not been a driver fatality in a race since Brazilian triple champion Ayrton Senna died at Imola in 1994 but everyone in Formula One knows there is a constant risk of a freak accident.
Brazilian Felipe Massa’s near-fatal head injury at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, when the Ferrari driver was hit on the helmet by a bouncing metal spring shed from a car in front, was a reminder of that.
The governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) has done tests with jet-fighter style closed cockpits and forward roll hoops, a metal structure placed right in front of the driver to guard against a frontal blow to the helmet, but all carry other risks.
“We are working with the Federation to try to work on the right system of protection. with what we have tested or are working on there are also some problems that you may have,” said Domenicali.
“We need to be very careful on all these devices. We are still working with the federation to find a possible solution… we are working very hard.”
McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh agreed that there was a need for some sort of added protection but closed cockpits were not the solution.
“I think people underestimate what a cockpit would have to be and how cockpits can make a situation worse,” he told reporters after celebrating McLaren driver Jenson Button’s untroubled cruise to victory at Spa.
“You can put this glass bubble over the drivers but you can’t assume that they are thereafter safe.”
Whitmarsh pointed to the considerable amount of research carried out in aviation to counter the effect of bird strikes on aircraft and how difficult it had been to protect a pilot while allowing undistorted visibility.
In the case of motor racing there are the added problems of impeding sightlines, cars overturning or suffering electrical fires with cockpits filling up with smoke.
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Closed glass cockpits will fix the driver being struck in the helmet problem, and it is more areodynamic. I have seen concepts of closed cockpit F1 cars and they look really cool!
Being honest it is a vicious circle like Bec said.
Could you imagine late 70′s drivers and cars driving like today instant death.
Testing is just that testing the car not driver.
much the same as Friday morning.
@Rob the Gardener a nice idea but this would only help them with cocentration and car development. what testing doesn’t give is actual race experience of going wheel to wheel with other cars. What i feel is needed is more policing during the lower categories. i believe it was one of the bbc team (may have been coulthard or gary anderson) said that some of the gp2 gp3 incidents were genuinly scary and i feel it is these such things that are leading to the racing style of groejean and maldonado
Obviously many of the accidents we have seen this year appear to have inexperience as a major factor. Let me throw this thought into the mix. Not too long ago there was mid season testing and even extra teams with two extra drivers testing cars. All the extra testing would have given drivers many miles in the cars and more experience before getting in an actual race. Also gone are the days of racing on Sunday and being back in the car testing on Tuesday. From what I understand many drivers would have been doing race distances several times a week.
Maybe despite the financial cost, it’s time to bring it back, before there is an even greater cost.
The safer you make the racing, the more risks drivers take, and more accidents like the one at Spa happen … etc, etc, etc.
It’s a vicious circle that will only end with no racing at all.
wat to do with people like gros and maldanado they r so immature do they deserve to be in formula1 i surely like to guess????