Well Massa nearly lost an eye and Maria de Villota did lose an eye.. we've then had this (Alonso) and Webber's incident a year or two back where they had a car coming over the nose/cockpit of theirs. Do you want a serious head injury first before considering it then?
Closed cockpits now appear 'inevitable' for Formula 1 in future
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Well Massa nearly lost an eye and Maria de Villota did lose an eye.. we've then had this (Alonso) and Webber's incident a year or two back where they had a car coming over the nose/cockpit of theirs. Do you want a serious head injury first before considering it then?
Alonso had a fire in his cockpit after the pile-up yesterday. The stewards ran over to him and extinguished the flames but then he couldn't breathe so he got out of the car despite having back pain.
If he had a canopy his head might have been safe but he could have had other injuries...
*Edit*
Also, closed cockpit is one thing but why is the mock-up in the OP (and the others from the Spa thread) all closed wheel as well? Do not want.
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Because that's not a 'what a closed cockpit F1 car might look like' mock up, it's a Red Bull concept that they were asked to make for Gran Turismo 5 under the guidelines of 'what do you think an F1 car with no regulations would be like'
Surely it's about danger. Driving standards have decreased because everyone is safe in their tubs that the chance they will get hurt is so slim. So they move over on another driver. The respect has gone.
Why bother trying to legislate for accidents that haven't happened or are extremely rare. You might as well give them all the driver aids and active suspension back because it's safer. If they try to combat so many freak accidents you might as well put slots in the track for the cars to run round and let the cars be controlled from the pits. Pastor I'm sure would still find a way to crash
Canopy and closed wheel racing, they would have to give them a 900cc engine and a 8k rev limit to keep the cornering speeds down. The aero guys would have a field day with closed wheels and a canopy. I thought we all wated to get away from so much aero dependance?
Do love that concept from Redbull. Not sure I'd want to see F1 quite go that far any time soon though!
I'm torn on Canopies, as others have said it might lessen the risk of injury in certain incidents - but in other cases it will make things more dangerous. It's a bit like the gullwing Audis in Lemans, great in certain incidents - but soon as you go upside down, then what?
I'm torn on Canopies, as others have said it might lessen the risk of injury in certain incidents - but in other cases it will make things more dangerous. It's a bit like the gullwing Audis in Lemans, great in certain incidents - but soon as you go upside down, then what?
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I didn't see any of that.
The stewards ran over and fired extinguishant at the back of the car but the fumes blew over the cockpit and the doctor who was calmly attending to Alonso clearly told them to pack it in. He stayed in the car for another minute or two before getting out.
I didn't see it either, it's what he said in an interview.
Maybe something got lost in translation.
a couple of seaosons ago didnt a ferrari driver get his bum burnt from a kers failure? i remember a lot of smoke aswell from a kers failure.
i'd imagine breathing that smoke in a closed cockpit wouldnt be fun.
also they are likely to tint the cockpit instead of use visor strips and it wont be the same without beeing able to see the drivers here clearly imo
The doors have explosive charges so if the car ends up upside down they get blown off meaning the driver isn't trapped (well that's the theory anyway).
Yep, just like on the Mercedes SLS that has gull wing doors. If you crash and end up side down, the doors blow off.
I think it was just fail by the marshal who used the extinguisher the wrong direction, which didn't help. The medical person at the side of the cockpit was gesturing him to not keep spraying their direction!
Ok not necessarily the cockpit area but if he'd crashed and that happened and for some reason the canopy on impact got stuck. What then?
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Deleted member 651465
D
Deleted member 651465
Allow me to educate you.
Risk is defined as Likelyhood of occurrence vs severity of injury.
It is possible that something is highly unlikely to occur, but the extent of injury is so great (fatal etc) that the "risk" is considered above something that may occur more frequently with insignificant consequences.
Basically a balance of probabilities, as it's called in health and safety.
Now. Saying "when is the last time x y z happened" is a dangerous road to go down. There will be a reoccurring eventually, it's just a case of when. This is why procedures are put in place and maintained. Often the cause of such reoccurrences is due to human error or rule based violations, if you want the technical term, where someone has thought "meh, this filter doesn't need to go on the fuel hose.. We've never had a fire", so they purposely defea the safe systems to benefit themselves or cut corners.
In my opinion this closed cockpit concept may reduce the risk of driver injury, but as pointed out will cause other issues with straight line speed and emergency access etc. I'm not so sure it's needed.
Risk is defined as Likelyhood of occurrence vs severity of injury.
It is possible that something is highly unlikely to occur, but the extent of injury is so great (fatal etc) that the "risk" is considered above something that may occur more frequently with insignificant consequences.
Basically a balance of probabilities, as it's called in health and safety.
Now. Saying "when is the last time x y z happened" is a dangerous road to go down. There will be a reoccurring eventually, it's just a case of when. This is why procedures are put in place and maintained. Often the cause of such reoccurrences is due to human error or rule based violations, if you want the technical term, where someone has thought "meh, this filter doesn't need to go on the fuel hose.. We've never had a fire", so they purposely defea the safe systems to benefit themselves or cut corners.
In my opinion this closed cockpit concept may reduce the risk of driver injury, but as pointed out will cause other issues with straight line speed and emergency access etc. I'm not so sure it's needed.
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Other random thoughts, canopies would also probably suffer badly from glare during evening races like Australia and Abu Dhabi, and also there's the problem of tyre/oil debris on the canopy reducing visibility. Unless teams start using 2ft tall tear off strips in pit stops 
if if if if.
We don't need ifs for open cockpit danger. We've had two serious ones and even more very close calls.
All systems have their downside.
But people are frankly deluded if you think a closed cockpit is more dangerous than open. They just aren't, they bring their own risk but those risks are far lower than open cockpit and that's before we start talking about safety measure to relive these issues.
Frankly open cockpit for me does not make f1, I really wouldn't care if it's closed cockpit. What I do want is more open design in technical areas, that is what makes f1 and something that has been sorely missing over the last few years. The loop holes for DD and DDRS have been great. But it cant replace proper engine devlopment, or in this new era keep engines locked down, but totaly open up KERS.
And I said in the race thread 2014 would be a sensible date to bring it in, with the massive rule changes. If another accident happens, it will move it from likely to 100%
