Should f1 run coupes?

[Daniel]

Really? Since when do F1 cars run almost altogether, sometimes 3 or 4 abreast on wall enclosed banked oval tracks at speeds exceeding 220mph for most of the lap?

You seem to miss the point yet again. Exactly what happened in Las Vegas couldn't happen in F1. That's not the point. It doesn't need to be exactly the same accident for someone to be hurt or killed. Any car taking off greatly increases the chances of a driver being seriously injured or killed.


We came pretty close to losing the head of arguably the best driver F1 has ever seen. But hey ho! He knew the risks didn't he......

[SGWilko]

What?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!

Can you honestly tell me that with a field of 2012 cars, the same accident would have occured for sure in the same circumstances? This beggars belief. Why you are not a consultant with the FIA for safety is simply impossible to comprehend when you obviously can see that the pointlessness in something which IndyCar has developed specifically to stop this sort of accident.

You're either very delusional about your ability to understand risk and the dynamics of contact between two open wheel vehicles or you're trolling. Throughout todays posting I have used terms like possibly and maybe to describe whether having the rear wheels enclosed on the car might have stopped this incident resulting in a fatality and you just come and say that the accident was "unpreventable".

This is a prime example why I've quit this forum, only returning to this thread because safety is always worth discussing. You try to be reasonable, you try to understand that no one can ever know anything 100% and someone comes along and states that an accident is unpreventable

So, if a car with enclosed wheels t-bones another car with enclosed wheels and STILL gets airborne, are you suggesting there is a design flaw, or just a result of the action/reaction of two bodies coming together with different closing speeds and trajectories?

[SGWilko]

You seem to miss the point yet again. Exactly what happened in Las Vegas couldn't happen in F1. That's not the point. It doesn't need to be exactly the same accident for someone to be hurt or killed. Any car taking off greatly increases the chances of a driver being seriously injured or killed.


We came pretty close to losing the head of arguably the best driver F1 has ever seen. But hey ho! He knew the risks didn't he......

Raised cockpit sides mandated due to a VERY SIMILAR incident involving DC and the other chap in a Williams I think it was.

The very same cockpit sides that everyone is moaning about cos you can't see diddly.

Motorsport is dangerous. Whatever measures you implement to improve safety will inevitably almost always have another unwanted or undesirable consequence....

[Daniel]

Raised cockpit sides mandated due to a VERY SIMILAR incident involving DC and the other chap in a Williams I think it was.

The very same cockpit sides that everyone is moaning about cos you can't see diddly.

Motorsport is dangerous. Whatever measures you implement to improve safety will inevitably almost always have another unwanted or undesirable consequence....

Of course. The thing is that you could easily put a canopy on and give the driver better vision and also better protection. I did think of posting that in one of the Lewis threads but tbh it's not worth the grief.

So, if a car with enclosed wheels t-bones another car with enclosed wheels and STILL gets airborne, are you suggesting there is a design flaw, or just a result of the action/reaction of two bodies coming together with different closing speeds and trajectories?

You're doing that thing where you completely forget the facts again. The thing with open wheels is that you can have a coming together with a relatively low speed differential and due to the fact that both tyres are spinning at high speed means that the car behind will almost certainly get airborne and at high speed when a car gets airborne then that's not good. Unlike yourself I am not claiming that enclosing the rear wheels would have meant this accident would have 100% not happened, I'm simply saying that it would have lessened the chance.

[Rollo]

Really, that's terrible - nothing would have saved him in that case when such an integral part of the structure fails due to the sheer loads involved.

It's true, nothing would have saved him, especially since the equipment is inherently inadequate to cope with the loads involved but it still doesn't stop people running those sorts of cars on those tracks.

Good money was spent in researching making racetracks safer; that usually involves run off areas but ovals have zero run off and actually help to funnel broken cars back onto the racing line.

Does anyone remember Paul Dana? Scott Brayton? Greg Moore? If people do, then I guess that the must deem that the rate of death on ovals appears to be acceptable, because no-one it appears is blaming the track design. So I suppose that someone dying at the rate of one every few years will continue.

Carry one then. I'll continue to hate oval racing.

In response to F1 cars on ovals previously:

F1 cars on an oval would be terrible...
...for a start they'd tear up the cricket pitch

[Daniel]

It's true, nothing would have saved him, especially since the equipment is inherently inadequate to cope with the loads involved but it still doesn't stop people running those sorts of cars on those tracks.

Good money was spent in researching making racetracks safer; that usually involves run off areas but ovals have zero run off and actually help to funnel broken cars back onto the racing line.

Does anyone remember Paul Dana? Scott Brayton? Greg Moore? If people do, then I guess that the must deem that the rate of death on ovals appears to be acceptable, because no-one it appears is blaming the track design. So I suppose that someone dying at the rate of one every few years will continue.

Carry one then. I'll continue to hate oval racing.

In response to F1 cars on ovals previously:

Completely agree Rollo, drivers were saying before the race that it wasn't safe so you have to question whether they should have been on the track in those numbers in the first place. People were also saying on the Las Vegas thread in the IndyCar section that tracks like Las Vegas are fine for NASCAR. A cursory glance on youtube at NASCAR accidents will show you that due to not having their wheels open, Stock Cars behave very differently during "big ones" and tend not to send each other high into the crash fences as much.

[SGWilko]

Does anyone think he may have seen the collision up ahead as an opportunity to make up a whole heap of places, given we know this;

Wheldon was moving his way through the 34-car field after starting from the back of the pack, which was part of his $5 million challenge to win the race. His was one of the last cars to get involved in the crash, and was sent flying from the bottom of the racetrack into the wall on the outside.

Whatever, it is a very sad outcome and a tragic loss of life.

[gloomyDAY]

Dan, I completely agree with you. I also thought of this thread when I read about Wheldon.

I'm proudly in the 10% minority of the poll because I think we're right. The clock is ticking and when it happens, not if, then people are going to say, "Well, why didn't he have something covering his head?" Motorsports evolve and that includes F1.

I know hardcore fans here want to keep open canopies, but F1 is a business. The sport cannot afford anyone getting killed, and an even more important point is that people's lives are at stake. We may jeer and snicker when drivers think they're almighty, but it takes a split second to see that they're just as fragile as anyone.

[Dr. Krogshöj]

...

[SGWilko]

Daniel,

I see you've been telling Joe what they need to do over the pond to make racing there safe, rubbing him and others up the wrong way as you go.