Competitive safety

[roon]

If teams lost points for injuries incurred by their drivers, would this incentivize the design of safer cars? As opposed to uniform and prescribed regulatory devices.

Broken bone, laceration: -50
Concussion, severity dependent: -75
TBI, loss of consciousness: -100
Loss of limb or organ: -200
Death of driver: loss of all points, exclusion from the season's remaining races

[Ennis]

I don't believe so. I don't believe anyone wants anyone to die or have life-altering injuries, but a few of my thoughts:

Safety in numbers is real. If you have a broader depth of engineering talent all pulling in the same direction and sharing best practices, you're more likely to get better solutions with less chance of an oversight.
If you don't regulate it, teams start playing the numbers game - what is the risk versus reward? Why shouldn't I take this 0.01% chance of my driver dying, that exact situation isn't likely to happen is it? And then it happens...

There's too much risk of someone trying to gain as slight competitive edge, with a slight drop in safety as the trade-off.

[VivecF1]

Injuries or deaths don't always have to mean bad design or implementation.
If another car shoves over yours, hitting your head... there's not much to be done about that.

That being said, I don't think deducting points for 'relative safety' is the way to go.
A clear set of rules have been put up, and every driver has the choice to get in the car. That's that.

I know many people will disagree, but to become a hero (which most of them want), one will need to take real risk.
That doesn't mean people will have to die, but it does mean that a 'balance' needs to be found.
Because in the end, staying home watching goldfish get old will always be safer than driving an F1-car...
The last death in F1 before Bianchi was... Senna, right?! Bianchi was sincerely tragic, but no protective measure will do when you glide under a standing 4 ton truck... .
That means that in one of the most dangerous sports in the world, the last (maybe, perhaps, who will ever know) preventable death was 23 years ago...

[turbof1]

I think a difference should be made between crashes and fatalities. Cars should obviously be able to protect the driver under as many different circumstances as possible. However, this does not necessarily have to be paired with crash prevention. Infact, I'd say make these cars as difficult as possible to control and as safe as they can be.

Nobody is looking at F1 to have people die, and nobody is racing for that either. The risk for the driver should be that when he crashes, he throws the race. Seems more than enough risk to me. Nex to that, a team should only be punished when they do something against the rules. Teams are in a competitive environment; you can't leave the responsibility to them to ensure maximum safety while compromising performance for that. That responsibility belongs to the FIA.

[marmer]

Surely a better system would be a set fine based on parts used purely for safety failing in a session.
Example from this season would be Hamiltons head rest. Mercedes should have been fined no reason to drop points as they where punished with a extra pit.
In situations where team takes no on track punishment points could be deducted.

If a part fails in practice I would issue just a fine

In qualification if they get off without punishment a 5 place grid drop should be added.
Example would be if a car gets out of a session on first lap but crashes trying to go fast on a 2nd attempt. In the crash something broke that should have survived the impact.

In the race most likely the car wouldn't run but if race control was aware of a failure the car should have to return to the pits at the earliest point and if the part can't be fixed they will be black flagged.
If the car makes it to the end of the race and the problem is then discovered race control should have the power to remove them from the results. Or impose a grid pen for the next race depending on the severity

[rjsa]

Competitive safety while saving fuel with standard parts.

Go on guys, kill the thing.

[NathanOlder]

Competitive safety while saving fuel with standard parts.

Go on guys, kill the thing.

+1

Competitive Safety wth ?

Is understand if drivers were injured every weekend due to weak flimsy cars. But thats not the case!

[roon]

Competitive safety while saving fuel with standard parts.

Go on guys, kill the thing.

+1

Competitive Safety wth ?

Is understand if drivers were injured every weekend due to weak flimsy cars. But thats not the case!

Perhaps equally enticing is the current situation of competitive powertrain warranties--teams being penalized for faulty parts and excessive maintenance.