Safety of car recovery (and trucks on circuits)

[SectorOne]

Yep, even if the car floats at 60kph it leaves much more chances to regain control. And impact would not be as severe.

I still maintain, at any speed other than a snails pace, that type of impact would have been severe. Would you want to hit your head on something at 50 mph? 40? 30?

That´s the whole thing, he most likely would not even have hit the tow truck with a pit limiter at 60km/h!

repost on the new page, just to refresh your mind.

Quick calculation from this site,

0,7 coefficient of kinetic friction (just taken from Wiki)

60km/h vs 200km/h stopping distances.

60km/h = 52m
200km/h = 582m

[timbo]

Yep, even if the car floats at 60kph it leaves much more chances to regain control. And impact would not be as severe.

I still maintain, at any speed other than a snails pace, that type of impact would have been severe. Would you want to hit your head on something at 50 mph? 40? 30?

Had he travelled even at 100kph, he could probably brake more efficiently and possibly avoid hitting the crane altogether. The fact that he still lives tells that helmet did protect him. The consequences would definitely be LESS severe at lower speed.

[ScottB]

Yep, even if the car floats at 60kph it leaves much more chances to regain control. And impact would not be as severe.

I still maintain, at any speed other than a snails pace, that type of impact would have been severe. Would you want to hit your head on something at 50 mph? 40? 30?

But if he lost control at 60kph, frantic braking, run off area, gravel etc would wash off more speed. From the sounds of it he was doing 200kph on track, and hit the truck at between 90 - 100kph. Hitting in exactly the same fashion at, say 30-40kph would have been far less severe, maybe lacking the energy to push under the truck, or rip the entire upper section of the car off etc.

All you can do is try to minimise the risk afterall. Having the truck not have head height ground clearance would also help.

[Manoah2u]

the problem of jules bianchi's 'hurt' is not his car entirely. As said by others, it's most definately the circumstances though.

I understand a discussion has started regarding driver protection, but the fact is, this is not the point that really needed discussion.

what is wrong is the race itself. and the blame here lies with Honda (well, the guys that own the track, and Honda owns the track).

The race never should have went underway at this time, but commercial interest for Honda was placed above driver safety.
It was a disgrace from the start. It should have went underway 2 hours earlier and NOTHING would have happened, just some visitors that could have gotten a discount, for crying out loud.

Instead, the race was not startable so was subsequently cancelled. But because of the delay, there was the unevitable; darkness, on a circuit with no lighting.

atleast 5 laps before the accident, conditions were too poor to continue, and drivers begged for race termination.
the combination darkness and weather should have been enough to stop it, no matter what the promotor wants.

commercial interest should never go above the value of life, or atleast the risk of human safety.

Sutil's crash then was a dead giveaway there was a need for instant action, and i was surprised the SC didn't pop up IMMEDIATELY. Any driver could have hammered into sutil's 'wreck' even if that recovery vehicle never appeared.

there indeed should have been double yellows, but track conditions made it hardly visible to see anything from an F1 cockpit.

A Safety Car would have immediately halted any 'speed' and Bianchi would have been fine.
Instead, none of this happened and now we have the results of all a bunch of retardation.

Speed limiter around crash site? perfect, do it straight away. Easy to implement, fool-proof and above all safe as can be.
Second of all; put sensors around the track that register rainfall. There should be a maximum of rainfull allowed to have a race or continue one, so if this amount is breached, instant race halt (redflagged).
Third of all, Fia overrule of promotor' desire. Fia has last call.
Fourth of all; standard Safety Car in accidents with such circumstances.

Fifth of all; give charlie the boot. heads need to roll for this, i cant believe FIA is stating 'organisation did nothing wrong',
when so many things went wrong.

We can't get Jules back, but like Senna, the worst thing to happen is when people Die in Vain.

I know he's not gone (yet), but it's pure miracle he isn't. So don't let this 'go in vain'.

think it's time for an overthrow of FIA.

[strad]

OK 60kph is 37.3 mph..or 16.3 m/s..much easier to regain control even in the wet in my opinion
However.. could not the FIA control have a function to transmit to the cars ECU a signal to force all the cars to slow to 37mph? No computer wiz but it seems possible to me.

[strad]

Manoah2u, I have to disagree with not starting the race..
We have raced in worse conditions with tires far less able to deal with the water on track.
Not to denigrate Bianchi but he did have the ability to slow down to a more reasonable speed.

[GitanesBlondes]

Ahhhh....as usual people propose numerous solutions that are not realistic, and cost ineffective.

SectorOne bringing up the Le Mans speed limit was the only sensible idea made in this entire topic.

A canopy would not have protected Bianchi at all, if anything, it would have splintered into sharp pieces that could have impaled him anywhere in the upper body area. Watch that video, and consider the force involved before suggesting a canopy.

Here's the thing a lot of you guys are forgetting, the drivers even in light of flags being waved don't always slow down right away.

Let me remind everyone of this incident...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJaZ9I-556w[/youtube]

Fernando cannot remember clearly the chain of events. "It all went too quickly," he said. "From the third corner onwards, I had seen the yellow flags and the sign 'SC' telling me that the safety car was coming out, but at that moment, there were yellow flags all around the circuit. I was careful, but I didn't expect there to be as much debris. I couldn't avoid a tire in the middle of the track. Everything then happened very quickly. I remember hurtling towards the wall. The first impact was very hard."

All it takes is for a driver to underestimate the entire situation, and to not adequately slow down enough for things to go wrong, quite quickly. If a guy who went on to become a double world champion could have gotten it wrong, it shouldn't be unrealistic to consider that Bianchi could have gotten it wrong.

It was an accident, and simply trying to come up with a bunch of knee-jerk reaction "solutions" do not change what happened, nor will they prevent the next freak accident that occurs.

[Daliracing]

OK 60kph is 37.3 mph..or 16.3 m/s..much easier to regain control even in the wet in my opinion
However.. could not the FIA control have a function to transmit to the cars ECU a signal to force all the cars to slow to 37mph? No computer wiz but it seems possible to me.

i think it is possible. Don't they do that in monstertruck events? If something bad happens the organisation can shut the engine down. I saw it a few weeks back on tv.

[SectorOne]

A canopy would not have protected Bianchi at all, if anything, it would have splintered into sharp pieces that could have impaled him anywhere in the upper body area. Watch that video, and consider the force involved before suggesting a canopy.

Agreed.

And on top of that, let´s just imagine the car has a canopy but this time we remove the tow truck and replace it with a human being.
How safe is the canopy now? The driver might be a fraction safer but the guy on the outside is now turned into scrambled eggs so it hardly solves one problem and definitely do not solve the other one.

[GitanesBlondes]

A canopy would not have protected Bianchi at all, if anything, it would have splintered into sharp pieces that could have impaled him anywhere in the upper body area. Watch that video, and consider the force involved before suggesting a canopy.

Agreed.

And on top of that, let´s just imagine the car has a canopy but this time we remove the tow truck and replace it with a human being.
How safe is the canopy now? The driver might be a fraction safer but the guy on the outside is now turned into scrambled eggs so it hardly solves one problem and definitely do not solve the other one.

Good point. I think outside of implementing a speed limit through a double yellow flag section, there's little else that can be done.

I also think this is the larger problem with F1 where the invocation of safety for, and over everything has left many fans ill-prepared to accept how dangerous motor racing actually is. Reading comments from fans elsewhere had me surprised as I was genuinely unaware of how ignorant people are to the potential risks drivers face. As such, they propose all manner of knee-jerk ideas for how safety can be easily improved.

[TzeiTzei]

I do recall Champcar having 'full course yellows' for bad accidents, basically yellow flags everywhere, so everyone has to slow down, would this be an idea? Removes the temptation to limit slowing through the danger zone to maintain advantage over other cars I suppose?

They use this in sportscar racing in US a lot. Basically every time a car stops on track they put the safety car out there. Safe? Definitely. Irritating? Absolutely! I'm not sure if the audience of F1 would be ready for this.

[ScottB]

I do recall Champcar having 'full course yellows' for bad accidents, basically yellow flags everywhere, so everyone has to slow down, would this be an idea? Removes the temptation to limit slowing through the danger zone to maintain advantage over other cars I suppose?

They use this in sportscar racing in US a lot. Basically every time a car stops on track they put the safety car out there. Safe? Definitely. Irritating? Absolutely! I'm not sure if the audience of F1 would be ready for this.

True, but perhaps if it was saved for more dangerous incidents, such as when it's very wet, or there's oil on the track; basically when there's a greater chance of another car crashing in the same area as the first.

I do recall it being a bit irritating, but they seemed to use it for the slightest little thing!

[antsyd]

What about protection on the recovery vehicles? Armoured plates could be bolted on, then padded around the bottom half of the recovery vehicle. Something could be engineered to ensure that if a car hits a recovery vehicle, the impact could be more similar to a tyre barrier impact.

[WaikeCU]

what about a hovercraft recovery vehicle?

[antsyd]

what about a hovercraft recovery vehicle?

This is no topic for jokes. I am serious about what I posted. Some form of modification to recovery vehicles should be considered. You do not want F1 cars going underneath them at high speed.