Double wheel tethers for 2011

An additional wheel tether to prevent wheels from flying off during accidents will be added to F1 cars as of 2011, the Technical Working Group has decided. The decision comes after pressure had risen to improve their effectiveness after their apparent lack of reliability.

In a teleconference, McLaren's Paddy Lowe said, "Wheel tethers are a great concern to us. We had the tragic incident last year with Henry Surtees, and we see wheels coming off F1 cars rather more often than we'd like, and than the rules intended, when tethers were introduced. They are working but they're not reliable enough."

"One of our tasks is to constantly address safety and we have agreed to do something for next year - it has been published in the rules. We will introduce a second tether on every corner. Rather than try to make each tether 100 per cent reliable, what we found is that when they don't work they have been cut for some reason due to the nature of the accident. What we're thinking is if there are two on each corner, run independently, then it drastically improves the probability that one or both will survive."