Raising the driver will need the cockpit sides raised. Would probably improve visibility to the front wing, but wont help with views of the periphery.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
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Raising the driver will need the cockpit sides raised. Would probably improve visibility to the front wing, but wont help with views of the periphery.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
But if there's a roof on the thing.....
Would have to be see-through, and I don't know of many clear products that are stronger and as light as carbon fibre.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
have you seen the windscreens on the coupe's?
Is the windscreen acting as the roll hoop?Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
No, that's the roof. You know, the thing that goes above the drivers head?Quote:
Originally Posted by SGWilko
Don't they both have 4 wheels? What? That's not enough similarity?! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
Why should I lose time answering rubbish?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bagwan
BTW how much is life worth to you? I think this pretty much answers your questions.
Where would you put the roof on an open cockpit F1 car, in the trunk?Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
Not 10 posts ago you chastise the swiss from preventing deaths in their country as a result of taking part in motorsports............Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
You mean that weight is more of a problem in cars then in airplanes? Or that airplane designers are smarter than F1 engineers (which I believe it is right by the way)?Quote:
Originally Posted by SGWilko
Huh? Reading lessons anyone?Quote:
Originally Posted by SGWilko
Oh dear - I think I need to go to specsavers. Sorry ioan - poor show from me there.Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
No discourtesy intended. :)
BDunnell - please ignore my comment, I was suffering a senior moment and got in a mucking fuddle.... :)Quote:
Originally Posted by SGWilko
I blocked you a few years ago for talking crap and I unblocked you because you started talking sense, now I'm blocking you for being deliberately annoying. ByeQuote:
Originally Posted by SGWilko
Shall we be sensible or is it thread closing time?
No chance of sensibleQuote:
Originally Posted by Mark
I've tried. The whole thread is about having a roof and somehow he is trying to argue against it on the basis that I'm advocating a flying roof type arrangementQuote:
Originally Posted by Mark
http://thestar.com.my/archives/2009/...ing/flying.jpg
when clearly the coupe's in Le Mans have a cockpit enclosed by a roof and a windscreen.
I didn't start this thread because I wanted everyone to agree with me, neither did I start it because I wanted people to disagree with me. it was meant to provoke discussion rather than silly comments and so on.
I'm not sure how one could ever come to an objective judgment on that.Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
It's worth a lot , Ioan .Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
Just lost a friend on the road last night , as a matter of fact .
He was into my shop for a coffee earlier in the day .
He was on his way back to town later last night , and went out to pass a seed drill , hauled by a tractor , and caught the edge of the road shoulder , lost it , and rolled into the ditch .
Yeah , life's precious , and I was glad to have said hi , when he passed me on the way in . I won't ever get that chance again .
We don't really think as much about driving these hunks of steel at speed as we should .
And , we should think of that "we" , and beware of others who aren't likely thinking about it either .
But , perhaps it's different for those taking part in this F1 thing here .
It's the pinnacle .
It's what many , if not all racing drivers , think of as that pinnacle .
As far as danger , these days as opposed to the past , they are wrapped in a coccoon .
Kubica was hurt in a freak accident in a tin-top bad enough that there is question whether he will race again .
He was , though , virtually unhurt in comparison in Montreal with that shunt that rivalled some of the most violent .
Drivers compete in both disciplines , both despite , and because of that danger .
And , simply , it gets safer all the time because of that danger as well .
The difference IMHO is that the Kubica incident could not be stopped, save for just not rallying at all. I've never seen an accident like the one Kubica had where something has pieced the bulkhead of the car and then gone through into the passenger cell, it's simply unheard of, but open top cars having their drivers hit by things seems a bit more common. Now I certainly don't think we should stop F1 just because there is the chance of someone getting hit in the head, but giving them a bit more protection seems a good idea IMHO.
Sorry to hear about your friend. Whenever I hear a story like that I think of my friend Grant who lived not far from where I as living back in 2004 (I think it was 2004 anyway?) and I stayed at work a bit late one Friday and on my way back home on his street he glanced a car which was turning right whilst overtaking on his motorbike and he slid along the road and hit a parked van. I came across him a few minutes later and ran to his house to get his housemates. We all stood around not realising just how serious things were and talking about how pissed Grant was going to be when he saw how they'd cut up his leather jacket and how damaged his bike was but sadly Grant died that night. I always think about what would have happened if I'd left work on time that afternoon, I probably would have passed him and we'd have stopped to have a chat and he'd still be alive. Weird....
I brought this up at the time, and was told there had in fact been at least one similar incident. I forget the details though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
Francois Cevert was killed by the armco penetrating his car in the esses at Watkins Glen in 1973Quote:
Originally Posted by BDunnell
How did you know I was talking sense if I was blocked? I am being perhaps a little flippant with the trunk comment due to the fact that an open cockpit car does not, by its very definition, have a roof.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
I'm still talking sense, you just don't like my opinion, and having not managed to provoke an argument to your satisfaction, you've gone down the 'I'm done with this guy' route
No need to be rude by the way.
Does this mean that you can now accept that, save for the non freak unstoppable type incidents, F1 cars and their safety features mean that enclosing the wheels and the cockpits is not required, and would anyhow, change the series into something other than F1.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
It is about whether F1 should run coupes or not. It has been explained that F1 is an open wheel/open cockpit formula for a start. Examples have been given of why, potentially, enclosing the driver could actually add more risk.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
You've then gone on to show re the Kubica RallyINGaccident, that sometimes, no matter what safety measures are in place, freak accident can and do happen.
An additional problem with the above vehicle is the additional mass that could potentially fly into the crowd if a wheel and fairing assemply broke off......Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
The Kubica accident was a result of racing .Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
Sure , one way to stop him getting hurt would have been to have banned that racing .
But , the biggest issue in the crash was that the guard rails were not up to the standards prescribed .
They are designed in such a way that they will not stab through the car in the way that they did .
You can be sure , although I have not seen the state of the area of the crash , that the barriers have been replaced , and that they will be the way that they should be now .
Very similar barriers in F1 have been altered or replaced as the result of many crashes at speed , and as a result , we have drivers like Robert who survive unimaginable impacts .
Perez was lucky to have those barriers in place , as that crane , or the barriers behind it are both rather hard and unforgiving .
Both disciplines have thier own dangers that need to be mitigated , but , sadly sometimes , those dangers are mitigated reactively instead of proactively .
In the case of my friend's crash , he was caught out by a farmer , who , himself caught out by the weather , was trying to get home after dark , having stayed too long on the field .
He made a choice , to run the road after dark , and my friend died as a result .
There is a law that states he is not allowed on the road after dark , and that law was created as a reaction to the very same situation many years earlier , we can presume . They are not road-going vehicles after dark .
It was reactive , but still didn't stop his death .
And , guard rail design didn't stop Kubica from near death , either , despite being likely the result of many earlier accidental deaths , both in rally , and regular road travel .
Cevert died when he hit a section of guard rail put together backwards .
Even when the safety measures are performed retroactively , it is never a guarantee that they will work .
I think they need to design the cars to improve the vision of the driver .
Whether they mandate a more upright driving position , or move to alter the sidepod in some way to increase the sightlines dosen't matter to me .
Drivers complaining they cannot see the wings is inconceiveable to me .
Whether one could classify this change as reactive or proactive is hard , as the design has evolved to be this way , and for both speed and safety .
Tall , fat sidepod crash structures , while having evolved to protect , get in the way of seeing your opponent .
They've evolved in those LeMans cars , too , and they are no good in tight with other cars .
When Jacques ran those endurance races , having run F1 a lot , he was surprised at how little one could see , in comparison .
Add a cockpit cover , and you add other complications , not just lack of sight .
I have to disagree, the accident could have very easily been prevented, one by ensuring the sections of armco were properly secured together so there was no "end" that could become a spike, and also by enhancing the strength and thickness of the bulkhead. Stupid as it sounds, a well placed hay bale probably would have prevented that freak accident too!Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
With any risk management you have to weigh up a number of things,
The liklihood of the risk occuring, the potential damage caused if the risk occurs and the "cost".
The risks of debris hitting a driver is low, but is real and has happened. Thta risk is lessened by an enclosed cockpit, but not reduced completley. Potentially it actually could increase the amount of debris involved if something breaks up and starts flying round. In terms of "cost" the monetary issue is small as it could be engineered relatively simple, but the cost to the sport?show?hirstory is far more difficult to calculate.
it is obvious that F1 has done a great deal to reduce the risks and to reduce the consequences when they do occur, and i do disagree in general with the idea of a closed cockpit F1, but i also don't think that just because the drivers are willing to put themselves in danger for what they love doing, that they should be left to be in unreasonable danger if a reasonable soultion to reducing or preventing that risk exists. As it is safety can always be improved, but I think F1 is doing a very good job of protecting the driver, despite a couple of recent incidents. In worry more about exposed drivers watching IRL cars flipping over on ovals, but i guess if you take a covered cockpit approach in F1, we should really be talking about mandating for all "open top" series thoughout motorsport
My objection would mainly be due to the "open wheel" aspect.
IF somehow engineers could enclose only the cockpit area of the current spec F1 car and still maintain all the crash worthiness, driver extraction, visibility, cooling comfort ability, and such requirements then I wouldn't really have much of a problem with it. But I suspect even with a fighter plane type bubble which would allow visibility, it would slow the extraction of the driver even if other concerns could be addressed. This is a bad thing in the event of fire, which isn't really all that rare in the world of F1.
Then we would have the issue of how marshalls reach the steering wheel, which would likely cause the windscreen/bubble to be removed and increase time to move a failed car to a safe area.
At the very bare minimum, it would also add weight on the upper limits of the car, something not favorable to F1.
Kubica's accident was a prime example of a freak accident, similar to what happened to Felipe. So there is evidence that no form of racing can be 100% safe. A couple inches of windscreen or a higher impact rating on the helmet visors would have spared Massa his injuries.
Sorry to hear about that :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Bagwan
And get ready for the moaners to start whinging like bitches about how the sport is ruined because the drivers are better protected.Quote:
Originally Posted by henners88
Thanks for the link Henners :)
Apparently, if you part with your hard earned and buy Autosport magazine, it's in there.....Quote:
Originally Posted by henners88
I'd prefer to discuss and debate as opposed to whinge like a bitch, but hey ho.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
@NobleF1 The FIA Institute has recently conducted some tests on the safety benefits of closed cockpits. Here is a video on itQuote:
Originally Posted by henners88
https://twitter.com/#!/NobleF1/status/91468271211134977
Thankyou very much for that Arrows :)Quote:
Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1
Only thing I would mention would be heat (F1 teams should be forced to run an air conditioner) and some sort of reliable way to jettison the canopy if the need arises. You don't want to have a safety measure which kills someone through bad design.
Daniel, that is unnecessarily inflamatory and misrepresents the views that differ from your own IMHO.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
It's very necessary. The sport has changed radically since it first started and for people to get hungup on having an open top or having open wheels when so much else has changed is silly. I didn't necessarily say that everyone who didn't agree with me was a whiney so and so, but some people in this thread showed a chronic lack of ability to make a reasonable argument for not enclosing the cockpit and or wheels of the car.Quote:
Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1
Jettisoning the canopy can have its own safety implications, as with pumping chilled air into an enclosed space - that's ideal fuel for a fire.........Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
No, I don't believe it is. You say that some people cannot make a reasonable argument, and yet you talk about "the moaners...whinging like bitches". That's not a good way to characterise those you disagree with.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
Anyway...Your argument seems straightforward: Introducing closed cockpits would improve safety.
What is the safety record of other racing series that have closed cockpits such as saloon cars and sports cars? Is it measurably better than F1?
Ejector seats! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
Gooooose! GOOOOOOSE!