The "Shield" cockpit protection device - 2017 evolution

[flynfrog]

The proposed shield will make racing in the rain even more difficult under its current proposed design (unless they add wind screen wipers that is). Plus while it may protect against small pieces of debris I struggle to see how it would cope with a wheel or how it would survive a serious crash? Plus if such a shield was smashed in a serious crash then surely the pieces of this proposed shield could endanger the driver!!!

I am interested in the views of everyone.

there are coatings developed for aircraft to take care of the rain aspect. Think rain X on steroids

http://www.ppgaerospace.com/getmedia/39 ... x?ext=.pdf


Having driven bubble canopy cars I can say its better to have a steeper flatter section in front of your face to reduce distortion. If you try to lay it back to much you get distortion and the added aero slipperyness makes it worse at clearing rain.

[riff_raff]

The proposed shield will make racing in the rain even more difficult under its current proposed design (unless they add wind screen wipers that is).

Because we all know jets have wipers (they don't!) and it's not possible to see in the rain with a helmet visor (it is!).

Most commercial jets have wipers on the fwd windscreens.

[FW17]

The proposed shield will make racing in the rain even more difficult under its current proposed design (unless they add wind screen wipers that is). Plus while it may protect against small pieces of debris I struggle to see how it would cope with a wheel or how it would survive a serious crash? Plus if such a shield was smashed in a serious crash then surely the pieces of this proposed shield could endanger the driver!!!

I am interested in the views of everyone.

there are coatings developed for aircraft to take care of the rain aspect. Think rain X on steroids

http://www.ppgaerospace.com/getmedia/39 ... x?ext=.pdf


Having driven bubble canopy cars I can say its better to have a steeper flatter section in front of your face to reduce distortion. If you try to lay it back to much you get distortion and the added aero slipperyness makes it worse at clearing rain.

Choice of design is for airflow to go over the shield or around the shield

Go over would be like what MS.com has pictured it, as you said it will be bad for vision distortion, but easier on a crash test, probably lighter as a result

Go around would be like the red bull shield, vision distortion wont be as bad the other case, will be harder on a crash test
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The idea of the shield looks like there is a desire for the cars to look like the late 70, but that would require the entire cockpit front and rear bulkhed to be resized. This could also mean a complete redesign of the suspension as the pickup points could be lower.

Regulations in tune of that needs to be rewritten, since there has been no attempt to do that, I dont see the shield coming in next year

[Andres125sx]

My view is that the whole "we must do something!!" thing that is going on at the moment is a total and complete over reaction to "A FREAK ACCIDENT"... One driver dies within 20yrs since Senna's death....

One freak accident?

Jules Bianchi
María de Villota
Almost Massa
Dan Wheldom
Henry Surtees
Justin Wilson
And probably some other I can´t remind just now...

It´s not one I´m afraid, probably not Bianchi, but all the rest would be alive if closed canopies were used.

One is a coincidence, even two can be a coincidence. 6 in past decade cannot be a coincidence, it´s showing a trend, and when a safety problem trend is noticed, FIA job is making whatever neccessary to stop that trend and stop accidents with drivers being injured or killed because of that



About the "F1 is an open cockpit open wheel category".... Sorry but to me that´s almost laughable...

To the purists, what´s the reason you didn´t stop watching F1 when it did loose its essentials earlier?


Front engine
Threaded tires
No helmet
No seatbelt
No rollhoop
No aero
.
.
.


The only reason people say F1 is an open wheel open cockpit category is because that´s the only thing wich has not been changed... yet. But there have been a lot more dramatic changes in the past, and none stopped watching because of that. Rear engines were a lot more dramatic change. Aero introduction was the most dramatic change F1 has ever seen, when they stopped being cars and started being planes where even suspension setup (a basic at any motorsport) is compromised to optimize aero.

Wasn´t that a much more dramatic change when compared to installing a windshield in front of drivers head? Fair question, please reply. To me, obviously not, so if F1 didn´t dissapear with all those dramatic changes, it won´t if we try to protect drivers lifes further with a simple windshield


BTW, look at that picture in detail, there was a small windshield and that´s from the 50s, so use whatever argument you want to criticize windshields, except that would cause F1 identity to be lost

[Holm86]

The proposed shield will make racing in the rain even more difficult under its current proposed design (unless they add wind screen wipers that is).

Because we all know jets have wipers (they don't!) and it's not possible to see in the rain with a helmet visor (it is!).

Most commercial jets have wipers on the fwd windscreens.

https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-a ... 3fefb5ec-c

They are only in use during taxiing ..

[carisi2k]

1. Massa's incident would never have been stopped by halo but could have been stopped by a windscreen solution.
2. Bianchi's accident was as a result of him ignoring the yellow flags and the race not being red flagged and the high g encountered by his sudden stop into a tractor.
3. The Indycar incidents are not at all relevant to F1 because they occur at high speed on an oval in an extremely dangerous environment. Maybe Halo might have helped but justin wilson was a tall driver and his head was always in the firing line in a single seater. He should have chosen closed cockpit racing instead.
4. Henry Surtees would still be here if the brands hatch circuit had more run off area at the relevant corner and a barrier not so close to the circuit edge which caused a tyre to come back onto the circuit when it might not have done at a different circuit with a proper run off area.
5. Maria di villota was put into a situation she should never have been in. Halo would most likely have prevented her injuries but the question should be why did the team put her in a car in such a dangerous situation.

[SparkyAMG]

It's important to remember that head protection is not an attempt to protect a driver in a Bianchi type crash because no additional protection would have helped in that situation.

The aim has always to be to protect a driver's head from flying debris, and whilst it's easy to argue that open-top cars are the essence of Formula 1 or that MotoGP is more dangerous, if a driver died at this week's Grand Prix because a loose tyre or spring caught him square in the face, how can we justify those arguments?

I’ve always been against the halo concept because I think it’s too much of an aesthetic compromise and I don’t think a ‘bolt-on’ solution is the correct way to go. However, a windshield of some form could be incorporated into a new set of regulations that literally re-writes what an F1 car should look and behave like (like the Renault 2027 concept).

[AMG.Tzan]

My view is that the whole "we must do something!!" thing that is going on at the moment is a total and complete over reaction to "A FREAK ACCIDENT"... One driver dies within 20yrs since Senna's death....

One freak accident?

Jules Bianchi
María de Villota
Almost Massa
Dan Wheldom
Henry Surtees
Justin Wilson
And probably some other I can´t remind just now...

It´s not one I´m afraid, probably not Bianchi, but all the rest would be alive if closed canopies were used.

One is a coincidence, even two can be a coincidence. 6 in past decade cannot be a coincidence, it´s showing a trend, and when a safety problem trend is noticed, FIA job is making whatever neccessary to stop that trend and stop accidents with drivers being injured or killed because of that



About the "F1 is an open cockpit open wheel category".... Sorry but to me that´s almost laughable...

To the purists, what´s the reason you didn´t stop watching F1 when it did loose its essentials earlier?
http://en.espnf1.com/PICTURES/CMS/8900/8994.jpg

Front engine
Threaded tires
No helmet
No seatbelt
No rollhoop
No aero
.
.
.


The only reason people say F1 is an open wheel open cockpit category is because that´s the only thing wich has not been changed... yet. But there have been a lot more dramatic changes in the past, and none stopped watching because of that. Rear engines were a lot more dramatic change. Aero introduction was the most dramatic change F1 has ever seen, when they stopped being cars and started being planes where even suspension setup (a basic at any motorsport) is compromised to optimize aero.

Wasn´t that a much more dramatic change when compared to installing a windshield in front of drivers head? Fair question, please reply. To me, obviously not, so if F1 didn´t dissapear with all those dramatic changes, it won´t if we try to protect drivers lifes further with a simple windshield


BTW, look at that picture in detail, there was a small windshield and that´s from the 50s, so use whatever argument you want to criticize windshields, except that would cause F1 identity to be lost

So why not go for full on canopies like the Red Bull X10?? That is my problem at least...they want open cockpits but with head protection! You can't have it all...and they come up with silly and awfully looking ideas like the halo or the shield now! Go ahead and use fully covered canopies and no one will talk about aesthetics or purist things! That's why most people are against FIA's head protection ideas...because they are all half-thought and only partially solve the head protection problem of open wheel cars! Just wait another 2-3 years and fully develop the fully closed canopy! [-o<
P.S. None of the head protection ideas would have saved Bianchi and De Villota...careful and logical decisions from the people around them would have saved them like not having a truck or a tractor on the track when the cars are running...maybe a red flag on Bianchis crash would have saved him...just maybe!
On the other hand Halo wouldn't save either Massa, Surtees or Wheldon...maybe Wilson!

[Vyssion]

My view is that the whole "we must do something!!" thing that is going on at the moment is a total and complete over reaction to "A FREAK ACCIDENT"... One driver dies within 20yrs since Senna's death....

One freak accident?

Jules Bianchi
María de Villota
Almost Massa
Dan Wheldom
Henry Surtees
Justin Wilson
And probably some other I can´t remind just now...

It´s not one I´m afraid, probably not Bianchi, but all the rest would be alive if closed canopies were used.

One is a coincidence, even two can be a coincidence. 6 in past decade cannot be a coincidence, it´s showing a trend, and when a safety problem trend is noticed, FIA job is making whatever neccessary to stop that trend and stop accidents with drivers being injured or killed because of that

Jules Bianchi
He hit a front end loader which was only within the track limits to recover another car which they couldn't reach from outside the boundary, while under yellow flags which he seemingly didn't slow down for or react to, in a rain-soaked track at dusk with poor visibility on a corner which is known to be particularly tricky in the dark and rain etc etc etc etc... not caused by debris.

María de Villota
In 2015, an official report compiled by the Health and Safety Executive concluded that De Villota had not received full guidance on how to stop the car, and was caught out by its anti-stall system, which activated as she attempted to brake to a standstill and pushed the car forward into the tail-lift of the team's service truck. Not caused by flying debris.

Filipe Massa
Spring lodged in helmet - helmet saved him... no canopy required. In addition, a halo would not have guaranteed to prevent that either

Dan Wheldom
Wheldon was involved in a 15-car accident on the 11th lap, in which his car flew approximately 325 feet (99 m) into the catchfence cockpit-first and landed back on the racing surface after his head hit a pole lining the track. Dunno about you, but a 100m flight ending upside down in something supposed to be aerodynamically glued to the race track seems to be the definition of the words "freak accident" But again, it wasn't debris.

Henry Surtees
Surtees was hit on the head by a wheel from the car of Jack Clarke after Clarke spun into the wall exiting Westfield Bend. The wheel broke its tether and bounced back across the track into the following group of cars and collided with Surtees' helmet. The mass of the wheel assembly hitting his head was 29 kilograms (64 lb), but given the speed of his car (approximately 162 km/h) at the time the wheel struck, the impact yielded approximately 60,000 joules of kinetic energy. Yeah alright I'll give you this one.

Justin Wilson
Race leader Sage Karam crashed late in the race, sending debris airborne. The car ahead of him, driver James Jakes slowed down faster than Wilson did, so Wilson went to the outside to avoid contact with his car. At the same time, the nose cone from Karam's crashed car hit Wilson's helmet as he drove through the accident scene, and Wilson's car almost immediately veered left into the inside wall. Again, I'll give you this one.

Without going on and on about these, I dunno about you, but these ALL seem like "Freak Accidents" to me... A rogue wheel, accident that was avoided but debris was clipped on the way through, forgetting about anti-stall... blah blah...

You could argue that, yes in most cases, IF cars had a canopy/halo, then these deaths "may" not have happened. But you mention that "6 at least in the past decade" means that something should be done... I dunno about you, but I would struggle to name something which is so dangerous that has killed less people than 6 in a decade... I would take those odds on that 6 times out of all the hundreds of kilometers each car does with 20+ cars on the field every race across all racing formulas in the world with an open cockpit regulation with all the accidents, marshal accidents, debris from gravel pits or crashes or fans, etc etc etc.... only SIX people have died in TEN years??

Yeah nah... These are freak accidents and nothing should be done to "fix" them because you simply cannot prevent every "freak accident" from occurring. Of course they are each tragic and awful, but such is the danger of the sport. Isle of Mann has had hundreds of bikers die, but I have never heard of a "bubble bike" being needed because of this?

I remember back in Australia that there was some bloke who was batting in Cricket and the bowler threw a bouncer to him (basically no way to hit it, its done to intimidate the batsman). They do it all the time and its allowed. But this one whacked him on the side of the helmet and killed him anyways. There was all this hullaballoo about "we must ban the bouncer!!" and "we need to change the entire sport cause it isn't safe any more!!" when realistically, it was just a freak accident *shrug*... a terrible one, but no different to any of the 6 you just referred to. People still die in closed cockpit racing - closing the cockpit is not the ultimate solution.

[carisi2k]

The cricketer that died was Phillip Hughes and the ball didn't hit the helmet but missed it and hit him in the side of the neck causing a crushing of a main artery in his head which led to bleeding in the brain and his death.

Here is a link to explain that for you. http://www.news.com.au/sport/cricket/ph ... cec0c13d56

I personally would like to see the return of a proper windscreen to deflect small debris. As alonso's incident in Australia showed, the tethers on modern F1 cars are strong enough to prevent the wheel from coming off. I do believe that runoff is also an important measure to preventing many of these issues from occurring in the future. The barrier at brands hatch where surtees was killed was obviously much to short for the speeds that open wheel cars and even touring cars travel at around that corner.

[Just_a_fan]

If we know a simple way to avoid some death, can you please provide me a convicing argument to NOT implement that safety point wich may save lifes?

The simplest way to save the lives of drivers is to stop them racing. Indeed, it is the only way to guarantee that they won't die on track.

Whatever system is put in place will not be 100% effective in all scenarios. Even if you canopy the cars, add additional padding, impact structures, whatever, there will be an incident that leads to a driver's death.

I can imagine, for example, a canopy preventing rapid access to the driver. The driver is in need of immediate attention to save his life but the canopy prevents it. What then? Scrap canopies and do something else?

[Cold Fussion]

María de Villota
In 2015, an official report compiled by the Health and Safety Executive concluded that De Villota had not received full guidance on how to stop the car, and was caught out by its anti-stall system, which activated as she attempted to brake to a standstill and pushed the car forward into the tail-lift of the team's service truck. Not caused by flying debris.

I´m not sure about the reason you mention flying debris cosntantly. Maria crash was so severe because the whole mass of the car and driver was stopped with Maria´s helmet when it crashed with the tail-lift, no other part of the car crashed, only Maria´s helmet, so it obviously couldn´t cope with the energy involved and collapsed, breaking Maria´s skull at several parts. Any structure in front of her helmet would have helped to disipate the energy, then the helmet would have not needed to cope with so much energy and Maria´s injuries would have been drastically reduced.

She surely would be alive with any closed canopy, windshield or halo solution. She survived for several weeks after the accident and it even looked like she was recovered, so any seriousness reduction would have been vital

Whether or not she would be alive with a halo or not is pretty irrelevant considering her test was run in such a negligent fashion. An F1 car can only be designed to be safe within an F1 environment, if you start demanding it be safe in what ever environment it happens to be in where do you draw the line? Should F1 cars be safe to run non FIA tests in downtown Raqqa?

[Just_a_fan]

That argument is too similar to those arguing seatbelts are dangerous because if the car get in flames you will die

Can you please provide me some example of that scenario you´re imaging to support your point? Those against seatbelts had some real examples. Do you?

One can imagine a scenario where the car is upside down. It can be extended to one where the car is impacted in to the barriers and the canopy release mechanism fails to work correctly. Now, I'm not saying these are highly probable scenarios but they must be considered when looking at solutions. In situations where time is critical, any delay might be life threatening. One might also consider a scenario where the canopy (or other device) is damaged in an accident and then moves back to impact the driver. This could lead to fatal piercing injuries, for example. It could still lead to a Bianchi-type fatality too if the impact occurs in the right way.

As for the argument about seat belts "back in the day", they had a point. The cars were fire death traps in accidents and being thrown clear was, for many, a preferable outcome to being trapped and burning to death. Remember that at the time, marshalling was almost non-existent and fire proof clothing was likewise not available in the most part. These were men who had seen or heard about pilots trapped in burning aircraft during the war - this was all very real for them.

Drivers were trapped in cars and drivers did die as a result. Lauda was "safely" strapped in his car and was saved only by swift action from what marshalls there were (not many) and by other drivers. Would being thrown clear have been "better", I doubt it but it might have been.

This does not mean that I think we should scrap seat belts - the risk of fire is much lower today but the risk of being thrown around in the tub in a crash is a 100% certainty. So belts are a winner. To try to counter issues of access in the current tubs, the seats are removable to protect the driver's spine. This is the result of looking at the consequences of changing the cars to "make them safer".

Whenever we propose a change we must always look at the unintended consequences of the change. Saying "X will make Y better therefore it must be done" whilst forgetting to consider what will happen to W or Z is shortsighted.

[Andres125sx]

As for the argument about seat belts "back in the day", they had a point. The cars were fire death traps in accidents and being thrown clear was, for many, a preferable outcome to being trapped and burning to death. Remember that at the time, marshalling was almost non-existent and fire proof clothing was likewise not available in the most part. These were men who had seen or heard about pilots trapped in burning aircraft during the war - this was all very real for them.

Of course, that´s the reason I used seatbelts example

Whenever we propose a change we must always look at the unintended consequences of the change. Saying "X will make Y better therefore it must be done" whilst forgetting to consider what will happen to W or Z is shortsighted.

Agree with this, there must always been a detailed analysis about unintended consequences to be sure X solution will not cause more problems. But closed canopies are not something weird in motorsport scenario exactly, so the anaylisis is already done in the real world, and I´ve not heard/read about problems caused by closed cockpits at WEC for example, but I don´t follow the championship... Can someone point me to some example?

Or there´s no examples because closed cockpits are safer? I did this question some time ago but got no replies, so I think closed cockpits are safer, but if some of you can point me to some example I could change my mind as I have no special interest on any solution apart from drivers safety. Ok I like closed cockpit more aesthetically , but if they´re not safer I have no problems with open cockpits either. The question is I really think they are safer.

[Just_a_fan]

WEC cars are not F1 cars so we can not just say that the closed cockpit of the WEC would work in F1. The most obvious difference is the size of the cockpit/canopy. The WEC car provides lots of room around the driver's head. It also provides two "doors" which afford access. The safety protocols are designed to aid extraction of a driver from a WEC car. Suitable protocols would be needed for canopied F1 cars. But F1 cars would need a fully removable canopy because doors won't work - there's nowhere for them. So any canopied F1 car would need to be reduced to a current F1 car before the driver is extracted. An unintended consequence of a canopy being easy to remove is that it might come loose in a race. Imagine several kg of canopy flying through the air at 150mph. That's a dead marshall just waiting to happen.

You can put a canopy on an F1 car but in order to make it as safe for the driver as a WEC car, it would likely be as big. So you'd end up with what is effectively an open wheel WEC car.

These changes are fine but we shouldn't pretend that an open wheel WEC car is an F1 car anymore. F1 is open wheel, open cockpit by definition.