Safety of car recovery (and trucks on circuits)

[johnsonwax]

The issue seems to be that his car went partially / fully under the truck, so why not fit some sort of 'side skirts' to track vehicles so that cars can't fit underneath them if they slide off?

Secondly, given the conditions, with one car having already aquaplaned off at the corner, might it have been safer to simply leave it there? Another car sliding off was always a possibility, and it hitting the truck, or even a marshall, as a consequence of that. I remember a particularly wet Brazil race a few years back where there ended up being several cars slid off at the Senna S corner and they were just left there each time.

Obviously that's hindsight at play, but presumably an F1 car hitting a stationary F1 car is probably better than hitting a truck, or a marshall, so I wonder if that might change policy going forward.

Track vehicles need clearance/traction so side skirts that would have any effect aren't realistic.

Hitting a stationary F1 car would be just as devastating. An example of what that might look like is Alex Zanardi's crash. Cars are designed for specific types of accidents - high speed into tyres, spins, flipping over. They aren't designed with a 150km/hr front to side impact or front to rear impact in mind. Those are supposed to be prevented by use of removing vehicles/safeties.

Nobody seems to be questioning why Bianchi was going so fast into a yellow in the rain. I'm not blaming Bianchi here, but until the incentives of going too fast in yellow zones are removed, drivers will continue to go too fast into yellow zones.

[thedutchguy]

http://www.scientiaweb.com/wp-content/u ... opy-f1.jpg

Indeed. It's still too early from a political standpoint, but I bet that the whole discussion about closed cockpits will be back in full swing later this week.

But while we're at it, lets also review the effect of the new 'safe' low noses. My guess is that with last years higher nose tips, he wouldn't have dived under that tractor today.

[johnsonwax]

But while we're at it, lets alsow review the effect of the new 'safe' low noses. My guess is that with last years higher nose tips, he wouldn't have dived under that tractor today.

Hell yes he would have. The monocoque was largely intact - the whole body submarined right under. Higher nose would have just shoved more debris back in his face.

But I agree they'll be back looking at closed cockpits from this. With the roll hoop in front of him, this might have been minimized.

[ScottB]

http://www.scientiaweb.com/wp-content/u ... opy-f1.jpg

Indeed. It's still too early from a political standpoint, but I bet that the whole discussion about closed cockpits will be back in full swing later this week.

But while we're at it, lets alsow review the effect of the new 'safe' low noses. My guess is that with last years higher nose tips, he wouldn't have dived under that tractor today.

I'm not sure you could design a cockpit canopy to survive driving 'under' a truck like that. In any case, it'd be easier to do something like mandate pit speed limiter use through double waved yellow sectors or something like that, if the drivers aren't slowing themselves down enough.

[ScottB]

The issue seems to be that his car went partially / fully under the truck, so why not fit some sort of 'side skirts' to track vehicles so that cars can't fit underneath them if they slide off?

Secondly, given the conditions, with one car having already aquaplaned off at the corner, might it have been safer to simply leave it there? Another car sliding off was always a possibility, and it hitting the truck, or even a marshall, as a consequence of that. I remember a particularly wet Brazil race a few years back where there ended up being several cars slid off at the Senna S corner and they were just left there each time.

Obviously that's hindsight at play, but presumably an F1 car hitting a stationary F1 car is probably better than hitting a truck, or a marshall, so I wonder if that might change policy going forward.

Track vehicles need clearance/traction so side skirts that would have any effect aren't realistic.

Hitting a stationary F1 car would be just as devastating. An example of what that might look like is Alex Zanardi's crash. Cars are designed for specific types of accidents - high speed into tyres, spins, flipping over. They aren't designed with a 150km/hr front to side impact or front to rear impact in mind. Those are supposed to be prevented by use of removing vehicles/safeties.

Nobody seems to be questioning why Bianchi was going so fast into a yellow in the rain. I'm not blaming Bianchi here, but until the incentives of going too fast in yellow zones are removed, drivers will continue to go too fast into yellow zones.

True, but there's presumably a happy medium between clearance at a drivers head height, and enough clearance not to get stuck in mud / gravel etc.

Do we know he was going 'too fast' yet? Is there any video, anecdotal evidence of the crash? He may well have been going too fast, but then even going 'slow' for an F1 car through there and aquaplaning off still could be 80 - 100mph plus.

[Richard]

Do we know the car went under? Yes it's reasonable to assume that part of the car would have been under the tractor, but did the survival cell go right under? Also we don't know if the nose was the part that took the impact.

The reality is that we know very little about this accident. We don't know how the car lost control, how fast it was going when it lost control, the speed at the point of impact, the angle of impact, etc, etc, etc.

[johnsonwax]

Well, the roll hoop and air box are completely gone and appear to be pushed backward and there's damage to the top of the survival cell in front of the driver. It looks like the front left wheel went under as did at least the left side of the survival cell. Jules is sitting lower in the car than normal, which suggests he went under and was shoved down in the seat. From the photo I'm not sure he can even see the road.

It looks almost exactly like he drove under a bridge with less clearance than the height of the front tires - concentrated on the left side.

[wesley123]

http://www.scientiaweb.com/wp-content/u ... opy-f1.jpg

Seeing how it thorn the whole roll over hoop off it will most likely also tear through the canopy. And with the energy released would improve likelyhood of the driver even being trapped under there.

[mrluke]

Difficult to argue that no canopy protection is safer than having an exposed helmet.

Any energy absorbed by a canopy is energy that doesn't go through the drivers head.

[GitanesBlondes]

Visual of the accident...

[Roman]

I posted this idea in the Suzuka race thread but I think it fits better here:

I believe the best way to reduce head injury risk from heavy equipment is to reduce the risk of an accident while there is heavy equipment at the track.

The closed cockpit can probably protect the driver from flying debris (as Massa suffered) but I do not believe it can do much if a car is sliding against/under a truck or a mobile crane. Especially if he is sliding backwards or sideward like Bianchi probably did.

Fixed cranes behind the barrier is probably also not feasible. The number of cranes needed would be too high and some run off areas are just too big to be entirely covered by a crane standing behind a barrier.

I believe the best (and maybe easiest way) would be to reduce the risk of a "double accident", i.e. one car crashing into the mobile crane while another car is just being taken off the track. The best way to reduce that risk is to lower the velocity of the other cars. This can be done via a time delta but that obviously still leaves enough for dangerous speeds as Sutil stated that lots of other cars took the courner in full speed despite the double yellows. Therefore we need to assure that cars slow down sufficiently while equipment (and track marshals!) is working beside the track.

For this I think it is the best and fairest to have every driver drive 50% of his speed while in a double yellow zone. It is possible to track the speed every car does at a certain point on the track. This data can be sent automatically to race control (as it is already sent to the teams).

Then for example if a driver took a turn with 100 kph the previous lap (lowest speed counts) he may drive at a maximum speed of 50kph while in the double yellow zone. Could be automatically tracked by race control and with the proper IT equipment teams could easily tell their drivers the allowed max speed. The main hardware (tracking position and speed of cars) is already there, all you need is the proper software that calculates allowed max speeds for the drivers and shows it automatically to the teams in case of a double yellow.

Then implement harsh penalties: 0-5% speeding drive through, 10-20% 5 or 10 place grid penalty, more than 20% disqualification (for example).

With the proper equipment speeding infractions can be seen by race control in real time and penalized right after.

[Tim.Wright]

One thing people are missing here, is that if Bianchi had gone off at a slightly different angle and hit a marshall, no-body would be speaking of the dangers of heavy moving equipment being on the track. The problem simply isn't the lifting equipment and the solution isn't to implement unconsidered, expensive, knee jerk reactions of long-reach cranes or padding on the recovery vehicles.

The ROOT CAUSE of the problem in Suzuka (barring confirmation of a vehicle failure) there was at least one driver passing through a double waved yellow section not just AT the grip limit but BEYOND it. THIS is what needs to be addressed before any actions are taken regarding the recovery equipment.

[CBeck113]

One thing people are missing here, is that if Bianchi had gone off at a slightly different angle and hit a marshall, no-body would be speaking of the dangers of heavy moving equipment being on the track. The problem simply isn't the lifting equipment and the solution isn't to implement unconsidered, expensive, knee jerk reactions of long-reach cranes or padding on the recovery vehicles.

The ROOT CAUSE of the problem in Suzuka (barring confirmation of a vehicle failure) there was at least one driver passing through a double waved yellow section not just AT the grip limit but BEYOND it. THIS is what needs to be addressed before any actions are taken regarding the recovery equipment.

In Jules' defence, Adrian Sutil said (live interview with Sky Germany) he hit a puddle which he couldn't see due to the light conditions (twilight + rain). He may have been driving slower, but sadly not slow enough.

[Raleigh]

One thing people are missing here, is that if Bianchi had gone off at a slightly different angle and hit a marshall, no-body would be speaking of the dangers of heavy moving equipment being on the track. The problem simply isn't the lifting equipment and the solution isn't to implement unconsidered, expensive, knee jerk reactions of long-reach cranes or padding on the recovery vehicles.

The ROOT CAUSE of the problem in Suzuka (barring confirmation of a vehicle failure) there was at least one driver passing through a double waved yellow section not just AT the grip limit but BEYOND it. THIS is what needs to be addressed before any actions are taken regarding the recovery equipment.

In Jules' defence, Adrian Sutil said (live interview with Sky Germany) he hit a puddle which he couldn't see due to the light conditions (twilight + rain). He may have been driving slower, but sadly not slow enough.

Fully agree, just look at the people hitting rivers on the shakedown lap and going off...

[mzivtins]

I agree, reducing the risk of head injury with regards to striking recovery vehicles is, in my eyes, to remove the situation altogether.

There is no circumstance where it could be argued that it is sane to allow Marshalls and heavy equipment onto the track without a safety car. That is the cause, and that is the solution. Do not allow it to happen. What happened to Jules has just been a matter of time, so often are we seeing torrents of hate from fans on twitter to the fia for non racing vehicles being on track with no safety car.

There is no need for change of the safety design of the cars of the safety devices worn by the drivers, but there is the need for a complete overhaul in members of the fia. No safety device can overcome the ignorance to the facts:
Known impending critical weather conditions
Comms from drivers expressing grave concerns
Seeing an accident as an indication of track conditions rather than driver error.

Just my two cents really, I feel the problem should be eradicated rather than be worked around.

My solution would be for Charlie and his crew to resign immediately, the fia to develop specific machinery for the task of removing cars, this should then be designed to take a hit from an f1 car with no detrimental effects to the drivers of both vehicles.

But that leaves short the issue of Marshalls on track. You cannot design something to get around that, only enforce safety whenever a Marshall is on the trackside of a crash barrier. The fact that is so obvious proves to me the current crop of the fia safety team are incompetent, blinded by track promoters wishes and too old to react to changing conditions.

Those pictures are too disturbing. F1 took a massive step backwards.

2014 technology with complacency where diligence matters most. Disgusted.