Article: Full Fat Formula 1. | Formula 1

[Vilsmeier-Haack Reaction]

SgtBhaji - are you Il Leone from BBC606?

 

[North North Watford]

I think it's silly to argue against the physical safety improvements made since the 70s or 80s. Improvements to drivers clothing and helmets, chassis that could withstand the demolition of a skyscraper, much safer barriers. Even with more controversial elements such as run-off areas, there is an argument that they help the sport more than they hurt (whether individuals buy that argument is of course another matter).

The problems in my opinion have come in the last 5-10 years. Canada last year gave me a bit of hope: before that I would have said that there is no way a race like Brazil 2003 would ever run again.

 

[SgtBhaji]

SgtBhaji - are you Il Leone from BBC606?

Nope. I was SgtBhaji on there too... Just didn't post a whole lot.

 

[SgtBhaji]

I think it's silly to argue against the physical safety improvements made since the 70s or 80s. Improvements to drivers clothing and helmets, chassis that could withstand the demolition of a skyscraper, much safer barriers. Even with more controversial elements such as run-off areas, there is an argument that they help the sport more than they hurt (whether individuals buy that argument is of course another matter).

The problems in my opinion have come in the last 5-10 years. Canada last year gave me a bit of hope: before that I would have said that there is no way a race like Brazil 2003 would ever run again.

I'm not trying to argue against safety, far from it. Even if there are some safety aspects that have detracted from the spectacle, they are there for a very good reason.

 

[North North Watford]

Others are talking about "sanitisation" though. On the other end of the spectrum, a subtle reference was made to manoevres such as Schumacher on Rubens a couple of years ago, in essence saying that because the technology is safe, drivers are doing more dangerous things. Turning your last point on its head, you're saying that you support all safety improvements unconditionally, but nonetheless have the opinion that some are detrimental to the spectacle.

My argument is that there is no element that has detracted from the spectacle on its own, the problem is that some safety features are being misused.

There's nothing wrong with red flags and safety cars being used under a (fairly) uniform set of rules, the problem is that those rules are wrong.

There's nothing wrong with run-off areas. I want as many people in the race as possible: only wet races and Monaco can claim to be as good or better with fewer than 15 or 16 finishers. The problem is that drivers are allowed to make use of them for reasons other than saving their cars or lives.

There's nothing wrong with altering existing circuits to ensure that the remains of crashed cars are less likely to end up on track. The problem is that this is in some cases less safe. I'd feel safer shunting the wall and ending up on the inside of the racing line, knowing that all comers will be treading on eggshells to avoid a puncture or a collision, than being beached on the outside of the corner knowing everyone else is going as close to full pelt as they think they can get away with before triggering a drive through.

 

[Smithers]

Valid points!

 

[ErnieBecclestone]

Others are talking about "sanitisation" though. On the other end of the spectrum, a subtle reference was made to manoevres such as Schumacher on Rubens a couple of years ago, in essence saying that because the technology is safe, drivers are doing more dangerous things. Turning your last point on its head, you're saying that you support all safety improvements unconditionally, but nonetheless have the opinion that some are detrimental to the spectacle.

My argument is that there is no element that has detracted from the spectacle on its own, the problem is that some safety features are being misused.

There's nothing wrong with red flags and safety cars being used under a (fairly) uniform set of rules, the problem is that those rules are wrong.

There's nothing wrong with run-off areas. I want as many people in the race as possible: only wet races and Monaco can claim to be as good or better with fewer than 15 or 16 finishers. The problem is that drivers are allowed to make use of them for reasons other than saving their cars or lives.

There's nothing wrong with altering existing circuits to ensure that the remains of crashed cars are less likely to end up on track. The problem is that this is in some cases less safe. I'd feel safer shunting the wall and ending up on the inside of the racing line, knowing that all comers will be treading on eggshells to avoid a puncture or a collision, than being beached on the outside of the corner knowing everyone else is going as close to full pelt as they think they can get away with before triggering a drive through.

It is certainly undeniably true that the improved safety measure's either collectively or otherwise have sanitised F1 as a spectacle and inevitably have encouraged the more adventurous driver to try extreme tactics. That said however I would not advocate the return to the old days where people died simply through the driving of a race car.

Interestingly, even Stirling Moss has publicly stated he is dio-metrically opposed to the views of the father of safety features, Jackie Stewart and says motor racing is too safe, now he knows all about crashing and the effects.

As you have stated it's the lack of application of control and the insufficient enforcement of the possibly inadequate rules that's the problem, but F1 is not alone in that, I guess as long as the clamour for the Dollar is paramount then things won't change.

 

[Bergkamp a Dutch master]

I want to see more gravel traps - where you go off and stay off.
Also stewards must introduce race bans where a driver is deemed to have intentionally caused a collision or avoiding action that damages the prospects in the race of those affected..

 

[Big Ern]

F1, despite it's speed, is probably one of the safest motorsports around, the drivers tubs are probably bullet proof and there is enough protection to stop all but the freakiest of accidents. The only race I thought worthy of a safety car/red flag was Monaco.
also I don't approve of anything that restricts the top speed, or power output, of the cars, it's just...wrong. I want to see the new engines with no restriction on turbo pressure, it's F1, they're supposed to be rockets with wheels.

 

[DHCanary]

I don't think the tubs are quite bullet-proof, but not far off. Didn't some debris pass straight through Perez's car last season, maybe at Malaysia? I can't remember the exact circumstances, but I'm sure something smashed its way through the tub, and caused him to retire.

Did anyone see the Adrian Newey fan car concept that he made for a Gran Turismo game? That was designed around having far fewer regulations than F1, and there is a video somewhere of Vettel trying to drive it around Suzuka in the game. After struggling to control it for a while, he did manage to put quick, consistent lap times in, over 20 seconds quicker than current F1 times. However, whilst this proves he has the reflexes the car requires, what physical effects would those sort of cars have on drivers? Also, whilst the technology exists to make the cars quicker, does the safety equipment, crash protection, etc, exist yet to make an accident safe?

 

[Big Ern]

How safe does it have to be for you, would you like the speed reduced to 60 mph because it's safer than going 200? Whe you think of the 'recent deaths' of F1 how many would've been avoiuded by reduction in speed or power, the answer is none, it was poor construction values killed D'Angeles, Senna and Ratzenberger, nothing else.
If you wanna limit the amount of downforce that can be applied, fine, but don't hobble the speed and power for the illusion of safety, Drag cars go much faster and are generally driven by people with far less skill. The sign at the gate says 'motor-racing is dangerous', let it be so.

 

[Sportydan]

How safe does it have to be for you, would you like the speed reduced to 60 mph because it's safer than going 200? Whe you think of the 'recent deaths' of F1 how many would've been avoiuded by reduction in speed or power, the answer is none, it was poor construction values killed D'Angeles, Senna and Ratzenberger, nothing else.
If you wanna limit the amount of downforce that can be applied, fine, but don't hobble the speed and power for the illusion of safety, Drag cars go much faster and are generally driven by people with far less skill. The sign at the gate says 'motor-racing is dangerous', let it be so.

Its true, theses are the best drivers in the world, with the best cars, best teams etc...... They have trained their lives to race these machines, they know what to expect. No one has roped them into driving and there pretty well paid too. Motorsport is a dangerous sport, and no one wants to see anyone die, but we cant keep going until the cars are rapped in bubble wrap and theres more tarmac run off than tarmac track.

 

[DHCanary]

NB: Sorry, as I wrote this, it just got longer and longer, it wasn't meant to turn into the rant it's become, and whilst it uses Miggins' post as a starting point, it isn't squarely aimed at you Miggins, apologies if it comes across that way.

Ok yes, poor construction could be blamed, but if the speeds weren't possible, then would poor construction have been fatal? One of the reasons that serious accidents in F1 have been dramatically reduced is that the speeds haven't been allowed to increase, and as technology and engineering has improved, the materials available to car designers have greatly improved. This has made previously fatal accidents safe. If we remove some of the speed restrictions, are the construction materials and methods significantly advanced to make the racing still as safe as today?

Drag cars may be faster in a straight line, but (and again, sorry - according to wikipedia (as a scientist I loathe it as a reference but I can't be bothered looking into more detail right now)), apparently the g force of a top fuel dragster at world record 1/4 mile speed, is still not as great as an F1 car experiences under braking. In turn 8 at turkey, drivers experience comparable g-force, but in a lateral direction, for 8.5 seconds.

If you want to push F1 performance further in the future, lets take the Adrian Newey fan car concept I mentioned as a starting point. He predicts the driver would experience 8g in corners, and a top speed of over 300mph. 8g is comparable to the stress felt by a fighter pilot in a full speed turn, so we know the human body can cope with it on a short term basis, although 2 hours of exposing someone to that kind of repeated g-force is a complete unknown. So on one level, F1 with this level of car performance is viable.

The main concern however will be the safety of the circuits. If you increase the car performance to those levels, how many of the current roster of F1 circuits become unsafe? Silverstone, Spa, Monaco, Monza, etc, would all become completely unsafe. If the cars go faster, the tracks proportionally have to become safer, as Sportydan says, you end up with more and more run-off area, less challenging corners, and basically everything we all hate about the current Tilke-drome circuits. The risks in an accident also increase dramatically, so why bother?

F1 is already the pinacle of motorsport, it requires a level of physical and mental ability currently unmatched by any other motorsport event, and all young drivers aim to reach the pinacle of motorsport that F1 is. Why does F1 need to go significantly faster? Greater speeds do not necessarily mean better racing. GP2, touring cars, even Go-Karting can produce more exciting racing than a particularly dull F1 race, so why continue to push the danger levels up, when the end product is unchanged?

I'm not opposed to faster cars, and I'm certainly not saying slow them down, but everything else which is required for an F1 race to be enjoyable needs to be able to cope with the faster cars. If anyone can design 20 race tracks for cars travelling at speeds up to 300mph, which are safe, challenging for drivers, allow fans to get close to the action, provide good overtaking possibilities, etc, and all at a reasonable cost so that several European countries can afford to build them, then I'm all for it.

 

[Big Ern]

Oh come on DH, they spend about 2 seconds at 8g during turn 14, that's absolutely nowhere near 2 hours like you're suggesting, and even if this was too much one of the effects of lose of control by the driver due to the gee would be the car straightening up and the gee returning to normal. Also, I don't know why you think we don't know much about gee force and the body, the Americans did a lot of research on it whilst training people to go to the moon in the 60's. They found out, for instance, that the human body is far more tolerant of lateral gee force (like in an F1 car), than longitudinal gee force (like in a fighter plane in high climb) and can take far more than the sustained 9g 'safe' limit of the aforementioned high climb, as it won't suffer from apoxia as the blood has not been drained from the head, which pretty much makes that argument irrelevant.

As to your next argument, why would the circuits suddenly become unsafe? What reasons are you giving for that statement? Do you have any sort of proof that driving down the straight at Monza at 300mph is so much more dangerous than doing it at 230, over what would be normal for the extra 70mph? If you think putting up the danger levels won't have an effect on the racing, c'mon, of course it's going to have an effect, the faster you go, the tighter the margin between success and failure.

These cars aren't much faster (if they are faster) than the 80's turbo's, they are, however, far safer, far stronger, have far more grip, have semi-automatic gear boxes with paddles rather than a clutch and gear-stick, so the driver can have 2 hands on his power assisted steering wheel as he puts his foot down an accelerates with his traction controlled engine. This was not the death laden 60's and 70's.

 

[BrightLampShade]

The problem is that circuits are consdtantly changing design slightly so its quite differcult to really know how much faster the cars are these days. They can certainly corner far quicker and brake much harder than at any time in the past but in a straight line they are lacking a little on say 20-30 years ago maybe. Less powerful and carrying far more downforce (and most likely drag) than in the past, yet still a good bit faster.

 

[Smithers]

I think if I'm right the cars were at their fastest around 2004? I would be quite happy to get back to those speeds and power out puts, but with the increased saftey of today!

 

[DHCanary]

Oh come on DH, they spend about 2 seconds at 8g during turn 14, that's absolutely nowhere near 2 hours like you're suggesting, and even if this was too much one of the effects of lose of control by the driver due to the gee would be the car straightening up and the gee returning to normal. Also, I don't know why you think we don't know much about gee force and the body, the Americans did a lot of research on it whilst training people to go to the moon in the 60's. They found out, for instance, that the human body is far more tolerant of lateral gee force (like in an F1 car), than longitudinal gee force (like in a fighter plane in high climb) and can take far more than the sustained 9g 'safe' limit of the aforementioned high climb, as it won't suffer from apoxia as the blood has not been drained from the head, which pretty much makes that argument irrelevant.

I've made a couple of errors here, sorry. Firstly I didn't mean 8g solid for 2 hours, I meant that in a 2 hour race they'd be experiencing up to 8g. However, your suggestion that the car straightening up if the driver lost control would solve the issue isn't valid. Whilst travelling around a corner at 150mph, if you lose concentration due to g-force and allow the car to straighten up, at most circuits you don't have the time to correct for this before you've hit something, which isn't particularly safe. The high g-force will have contributed directly to the accident.

As to your next argument, why would the circuits suddenly become unsafe? What reasons are you giving for that statement? Do you have any sort of proof that driving down the straight at Monza at 300mph is so much more dangerous than doing it at 230, over what would be normal for the extra 70mph? If you think putting up the danger levels won't have an effect on the racing, c'mon, of course it's going to have an effect, the faster you go, the tighter the margin between success and failure.

Ok, I agree that travelling at 300mph in itself is no more dangerous than travelling at 230mph - until something goes wrong, and I don't think a 70mph crash is something to be sniffed at! In the event of an accident, you have debris travelling much faster than the track is currently designed to cope with, leading to the possibility that some goes into the crowds, or further threaten marshals. If you go off, the gravel traps, or tarmac run-offs aren't long enough to scrub enough speed off the car before impact. If the car digs in, you've got a greater force trying to induce the car to roll. When the car reaches the end of the run-off zone, the current Tech-Pro barriers (the best available to F1) are only tested to stop an F1 car at 135mph. Beyond that, the technology doesn't exist to safely stop an F1 car in a short distance. Instead, you'd currently need larger run-off areas, moving stands further away. That will be a huge cost to many F1 circuits already struggling to make enough money to keep their race on the calendar.

Also, yes the margin is closer between success and failure, but then if failure means death or injuries, then in my opinion thats the wrong direction for the sport to take. I think the sport should reward those drivers capable of making good, clean overtakes, without killing those incapable of it.

These cars aren't much faster (if they are faster) than the 80's turbo's, they are, however, far safer, far stronger, have far more grip, have semi-automatic gear boxes with paddles rather than a clutch and gear-stick, so the driver can have 2 hands on his power assisted steering wheel as he puts his foot down an accelerates with his traction controlled engine. This was not the death laden 60's and 70's.

It's petty I know, but traction controlled has been gone since 2008, and by my count at least 4 drivers died during the F1 turbo era.

However, on the topic of g-force in general, I've been looking into it and do agree that the human body can tolerate more. The work done by John Stapp makes for fascinating reading. I don't think F1 should be pushing the boundaries of human resistance to g-force, Stapp suffered serious, permanent eye damage as a result of his work (and I don't think any safety equipment could stop blood pooling in the eyes, causing capillaries to burst, etc), so an acceptable level has to be maintained.

I'd love to hear Cosi's thoughts on increasing the speeds in F1, I'm sure there are other physical factors I'm missing here.

 

[ErnieBecclestone]

Its not all about ultimate speed is it, racing cars traveling at 200mph are quite fast enough, in truth probably too fast, its the competition in terms of real overtaking and getting through on the outside or inside that excites me, I believe its called racing.

Driver's travelling at silly speed's ie 300mph will have much less opportunity to complete such moves and when it goes wrong, what then !!!

I think Bergy has a valid point, make the run offs very difficult to get out of and likely to cause punctures, the current safety features are fine and have been thought through very carefully, they just need a little adjustment and rule enforcement.

 

[DHCanary]

I fully agree with Ernie. I think with the current limits on performance, the sport is nearly as safe as possible, with just those freak accidents that it's difficult to eliminate remaining, so attention should now turn to improving the spectacle, and improving the sport. DRS and KERS shows that the FIA are aware that the lack of overtaking requires thought, and whilst not an ideal solution at this moment in time, it's a work in progress.

I'm sure we had a similar debate previously, and I think it was said that Paul Ricard already utilises highly abrasive tarmac, which is more abrasive the further you get from the track. That way the tarmac offers more traction as you get closer to the barriers, slowing the impact further, but if drivers are able to recover and return to the circuit, the abrasive surface will have significantly decreased tyre life, or they can crawl back to the track and lose time. It seems like a fairly sensible solution to me.

 

[Big Ern]

A completely untrained person can easily sustain over 15g of lateral force for minutes on end without any loss of consciousness or adverse effects at all. I suggest you go reread. Or apply to Fox news for a job.

Its not all about ultimate speed is it,

er, yes it is, otherwise we'd watch Formula Ford, which has far more overtaking in it.

The Blue Ribband events are nearly always abut top speed, wanna see the 1500m final or the 100m final?