Low nose safety

[Brown, Jon Brow]

Adrian Newey said before the start of the season that the new low noses could be dangerous. It was claimed that a car could be launched when it was rear-ended and potentially increase the chances of a cockpit intrusive impact.

Look at how the rear of the Williams was lifted into the air when it was struck.


And this was at fairly low speed.

[donKey jote]

retrofit them with (red) bullbars... job done

[steveaki13]

I can see the point.

Think about Massa and the risk of being flipped when the car behind scoops it up and then potentially over as it hits the ground. Also Kobayshi, if he had been going faster the Williams may have ridden up his nose and into the Caterhams cockpit. The real danger is that a Car will slide almost completely underneath another car.

That all said. We have had low noses before. The early 2000s had some low noses too I seem to remember.

[AndyL]

We also know that the high noses were dangerous, Mark Webber knows all about that.

Johnny Herbert suggested they should be looking at the back of the car - a lower crash structure could reduce the likelihood of this sort of thing.

[steveaki13]

True. Ultimately I think any nose could be dangerous. I mean you could never remove all danger in these incidents.

[Mark]

Remember that prior to about 1995, all the cars had low noses.

[Doc Austin]

No matter what you do to improve safety in one area, it always seems to compromise something else.

A good solution would be to mandate dimensions for the nose, including a minimum/maximum height, and then the same for the rear. Make the two heights different so nose I always slightly higher than the rear. Even that is not going to guarantee cars can't go over/under, but it should help.

If nothing else, there needs to be some sort of rules adjustment (for next year) to get rid of the ugly, uhhhhmm....... protrusions sticking out the noses. The McLaren is probably the best looking car on the grid, but it still has an ugly, uhhhhhmmmm........ protrusion hanging off the front.

The Sauber seem to have the best solution to making the nose a bit less attractive and......... uhhhhmmmm..... suggestive, but it doesn't seem to help it go very fast.

[Doc Austin]

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[Doc Austin]

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[Doc Austin]

Sorry. It wouldn't allow me to post and now it shows up three times!