Catch fencing

[Mark]

I just happened to stumble upon highlights of the 1975 British Grand Prix. Commentary by Jackie Stewart and Murray Walker . Murray sounded exactly the same in 1975 as he always did

On the first corner at Silverstone instead of gravel traps they had erected a series of catch fences, one after another, JYS described them as 'wire mesh with light poles, they do a good job of arresting the cars'.

Was this used anywhere else or was it just a trial for this race?

Towards the end of this race there was a torrential downpour and many of the drivers using slick tyres went straight into the catch fencing and it looked very dangerous indeed

[ArrowsFA1]

Was this used anywhere else or was it just a trial for this race?

It was a common sight at circuits, certainly until the mid-1980's. More than one driver suffered a clout on the head from one of the poles, and being wrapped up in catch-fencing was not uncommon

It was possibly introduced in the 70's as an alternative to armco, which had caused the death of Francois Cevert, Stewart's team-mate at Tyrrell in 1973.

[K-Pu]

For example Ayrton Senna had a big accident with these fences at Paul Ricard IIRC... And Laffite too some years before. In the video footage you can se how the fecen poles are thrown away when the car goes off the track. If the pilot is hit by one of these... well, at least they wear helmets, but in Lafitte´s case, poles were thrown where the public should be

[sonic_roadhog]

Yeah terrible idea! But I can't help that notice something very similar has turned up in place of crash barriers on the roads. My local Motorway has wire barriers connected by 1m tall posts!!!! Maybe the planners should take a look at 70's/80's F1 films.

Sonic

[ArrowsFA1]

This is Riccardo's experience of catch fencing at Zandvoort during the 1979 Dutch GP after brake failure on his Arrows at the end of the straight

[Mark]

A crashing F1 car only about a metre from standing spectators. Horrifying these days.

[Alexamateo]

It was a common sight at circuits, certainly until the mid-1980's. More than one driver suffered a clout on the head from one of the poles, and being wrapped up in catch-fencing was not uncommon

If I am not mistaken, Mark Donohue was killed after a catch fencing pole hit him in the head. He walked away from the accident, but died hours later as a result of blood clots on the brain. It's also a reason drivers should be checked out after an accident even if they appear uninjured.

[futuretiger9]

Catch fencing seemed to become more fashionable after Armco barriers were implicated in fatal accidents in F1 and other formulae.

Although they usually succeeded in slowing the cars down, I wince when watching old F1 footage and seeing a car go into the catch fencing. There were a few nasty moments involving catch fencing. Eventually in the mid-to-late 1980s, a consensus emerged, which revolved around the use of gravel traps and tyre barriers.

[D-Type]

At the time cars had little of the passive safety that we take for granted nowadays. The concept of central "safety cell" where a car absorbed a lot of energy ripping the corners off while the central tub remaines intact didn't exist then.
The objection to Armco was twofold - it was hard and unyielding, particularly in a head-on impact; and secondly it would bounce a damaged car back onto the track in front of the others.
On the other hand, catch fencing brought a car progressively to a halt with gentler deceleration of the driver and less risk of bits flying off into the crowd. A major problem arose with multi-layer fencing: the marshalls had difficulty getting to the car to render assistance. They couldn't be sure how many layers a car had gone through so if they judged wrong and ran between the wrong two fences they could be sparated from the car by a layer of impenetrable chain link fence. The best answer was to follow the car in from the track, but this meant putting yourself in the firing line as it were. As catch fencing was designed to absorb energy by failing, if an accident did occur it had to be rebuilt taking time and money.

[GJD]

Oh yes, catch fencing could be quite dangerous stuff.