FIA ruining F1 in the name of safety

[The_table]

If only a less ugly solution was on the table :/ (i know this is an equally dumb thing to say: ie "looks over safety") but damn those things are ugly...
I'd be absolutely fine with a canopy but those weren't safe enough apparently,although the test was very extreme.
(They tested some insanely thick canopy, blasted an F1 wheel at it at ridiculous speed and it failed...)

Encasing the driver's head more on the side might be a good start.

Like raising that "hublot" bit to over the driver's head and pushing it forward, making that bit kind of like a tunnel, you could extend the airbox over it,but i bet that would be ugly...we should get some designers on this topic.

You would end up in trouble with visibility but maybe they should replace the mirrors with camera's and put some small screen to each side of the driver, inside the cockpit. (crazy idea, i know )


Maybe we should have a general F1 safety comments and ideas thread?

[cplchanb]

deprives the public of crashes. [and]
Thing is, racing should be dangerous, you should need to be of a special breed to do it, daring to do it.

This young man, 17 years of age, lost both lower legs in this crash only a few days ago. Enjoy watching this crash. Wouldn't want you deprived of it.
https://youtu.be/n23XkCX5IJ8

ouch my goodness. that's rough stuff right there. horrible.

he has my sympathies but honestly his crash was due to the car that he rear ended and not with the current debate on sandtraps and sterilisation by asphalt. I for one wouldnt necessarily favour crashing and nascar style banging, but I do want to see drivers punished for making driving mistakes. I do agree that the sochi like circuits have way too much asphalt and need to have a some more gravel traps. They need to find the right balance between safety and paranoia.

[Manoah2u]

i wanted to say water traps as that will redue speed superbly fast but then i realized that if they end up upside-down, that's death right there.....so no.......

anyway, there are no sand traps in monaco, so i don't see how sand traps need to be such a big of a deal.

[cplchanb]

i wanted to say water traps as that will redue speed superbly fast but then i realized that if they end up upside-down, that's death right there.....so no.......

anyway, there are no sand traps in monaco, so i don't see how sand traps need to be such a big of a deal.

well i do recall the dinosaur (bernie) suggesting walls that mimic monaco...or maybe a grass field or a layer of sticky goo??

[Andres125sx]

Thing is, racing should be dangerous

Where did you get this absurd idea?

You should need to be of a special breed to do it, agree with this, but to control a F1 car at its limits, not to risk your life unnecessarily

I personally want talented drivers much better than lunatics who don´t care about his or other´s lifes

[marvin78]

Fact is: racing IS dangerous. Always. But it SHOULD be? Are you serious?

[Manoah2u]

With people like this i always feel like, how about you step yourself into such a sport.

go ahead, step into a cigar-racer without seatbelts, without goggles, without helmet, and race an entire race weekend. if you crash at a bridge and tumble 30 meters into the abyss and crack open upon the rocks, no tears right? do you step into a 250cc kart without helmet and seatbelt, and when you flip out and get mangled into the wall and paralized from the waist down, dont come and cry because it 'should be dangerous'.

Racing is dangerous yes.
And a deepfryer is hot. but you're not going to say 'hey, i want to eat fries, let me grab them from the burning oil with my bare hands'. No, you protect yourself with gloves and lift the basket out of the deepfryer and let it cool down for a second before you push it in your face or on a plate. You don't NEED to harm yourself to 'deserve' french fries. Likewise racing is dangerous, death can occur. but you don't HAVE to provoke grave mortal wounds or fatal accidents in order to 'appreciate' the french fries called F1.

Is skydiving boring because you have a parachute? if you think so, i'll suggest that person should get aboard a plane and jump out of it without one. if you survive that unscathed, then let's talk again.

[cplchanb]

i guess the main message of this thread is that FIA should pursue safety but it must also draw a line between that and plain paranoia....after the JB incident FIA has taken huge measures to make the sport safer but imo there are a few things that they have taken too far such as VSC at a whim, Halo and backing out of wet starts (which they have mostly corrected). they should stop trying to take a shotgun approach in hoping they can just cover everything.

[zac510]

F1 is dangerous enough as it is, ask the families of Jules Bianchi and Maria de Villota (Both very special cases but still..)

Just to point out, just like in plane crashes, motorsport deaths will be in special cases, because so much work has been done to resolve the common causes of crashes and/or injuries. Now only special cases remain.

[Edax]

I think with current racing, the entertainment factor is reduced by gravel traps rather than increased.

Surely gravel traps have a certain entertainment factor. Drivers have to get it right all the time, otherwise we can enjoy watching them struggle through the gravel waiting for the moment they dig themselves in.

But in the past the race could usually just continue, while the vehicle was recovered. Since Bianchi they are much faster in pulling out the virtual safety car. And I think rightfully so. That means that every car in the gravel will cause 2-5 parade laps with the recovery as only form of entertainment. To see recovery vehicles I can recommend some Discovery shows, but I prefer straight out racing.

FIA should strife for safe entertainment, that means finding solutions which work for both.

[Just_a_fan]

I'd rather have drivers being able to continue a race after a cock up to be honest...

I remember "the good old days" when a driver would be out of a race for one simple error such as out braking himself in to a corner. A trip in to the gravel and that was that. This meant we had races where perfectly usable cars were not running on track because of a single, simple mistake. I remember races where 2/3rds of the field either broke down or were beached in gravel. These were not good things.

[Manoah2u]

I think with current racing, the entertainment factor is reduced by gravel traps rather than increased.

Surely gravel traps have a certain entertainment factor. Drivers have to get it right all the time, otherwise we can enjoy watching them struggle through the gravel waiting for the moment they dig themselves in.

But in the past the race could usually just continue, while the vehicle was recovered. Since Bianchi they are much faster in pulling out the virtual safety car. And I think rightfully so. That means that every car in the gravel will cause 2-5 parade laps with the recovery as only form of entertainment. To see recovery vehicles I can recommend some Discovery shows, but I prefer straight out racing.

FIA should strife for safe entertainment, that means finding solutions which work for both.

FIA is doing damn fine right now, that's exactly what removing gravel traps and replacing it with asphalt will do. less recovery time, race underaway faster. i think the VSC and SC are working absolutely fine.

the only problem i still see is Charlie Whiting still being in his position. Bloke is straight out confused. I wish for Seb all the best in the world, but that starting position WAY off the starting spot SHOULD have been penalized with a 5-second penalty OR a drive-through penalty.

[Edax]

I think with current racing, the entertainment factor is reduced by gravel traps rather than increased.

Surely gravel traps have a certain entertainment factor. Drivers have to get it right all the time, otherwise we can enjoy watching them struggle through the gravel waiting for the moment they dig themselves in.

But in the past the race could usually just continue, while the vehicle was recovered. Since Bianchi they are much faster in pulling out the virtual safety car. And I think rightfully so. That means that every car in the gravel will cause 2-5 parade laps with the recovery as only form of entertainment. To see recovery vehicles I can recommend some Discovery shows, but I prefer straight out racing.

FIA should strife for safe entertainment, that means finding solutions which work for both.

the only problem i still see is Charlie Whiting still being in his position. Bloke is straight out confused. I wish for Seb all the best in the world, but that starting position WAY off the starting spot SHOULD have been penalized with a 5-second penalty OR a drive-through penalty.

I think the main problem is that we don't know what we want.

Penalizing Vettel would mean acting to the intention of the rule rather than the applying the rule itself. Because there is no specific rule on Vettels positioning. Though I agree it was pushing the boundaries of sportmanship.

But when the FIA used a liberal interpretation of the rules as they did a few years back they were chasticed for being inconsistent and demand rule clarity.

I have seen it so many times. We were extremely upset when they banned turbo's on ground of safety and went to normal aspirated engines. Who in his right mind would prefer an old fashioned noisy big v8 or v10, over a quiet powerfull 1.6l v6 turbo, right..............

When they ban gravel we want gravel, when they ban asphalt run off we want asfalt run off.

They will never get it right. But as long as they can keep me interested enough to watch races and as long as they can keep most of my favorite drivers alive with all limbs attached I say they do a pretty good job.

[strad]

While I cannot agree that they should die for our entertainment I would agree with these quotes from ones who should know...

Motorsport without danger is like cooking without salt
Sir Stirling Moss

.

If a man can't look at danger and still go on, man has stopped living. If the worst ever happens – then it means simply that I've been asked to pay the bill for the happiness of my life – without a moment's regret. Graham Hill

.

These men are not wild and wooly characters who
do not care if they live or die, nor are they clowns
or speed-happy maniacs.
They are men with a special skill which they have
developed over a hazardous few years. They survived
the development period and became great in their
profession.
Having survived and become champions, they lived on
an exciting plateau alone with their own kind, above
other men, envied by many who were not gifted with the
daring spirit and the ability to live life to the
fullest possessed by them."
~ Johnnie Parsons, 1970

The men who live it, seem to have a different view from those who worry overmuch about safety.

[OO7]

For me it's not so much the tarmac run-offs, but the fact that the circuit and run-offs merge together uninterrupted e.g Barcelona T3 & Monza Parabolica. I'd much prefer if there was a 3 to 5 metre wide strip of grass verge or astroturf between the circuit and the run-off.