to bump the topic a bit I start with two quotes from that thread:
WhiteBlue wrote:...of course track safety plays a major role in keeping driver alive and unhurt but there was a lot more done to the cars and driver equipment than you want to see.
This much from the top of my head and there would be a lot more that I do not care to research at the moment in addition to the HANS and safety cell specifications ....
- three upgrades in fuel tank safety
- two upgrades in Helmet safety
- three upgrades in cockpit design for driver protection incl. raised side walls, bigger mirrors, foam padding, extractable seats, wider cockpit openings
- three front impact crash absortion upgrades
- two or three side impact crash absorbtion upgrades
- two rear crash absorbtion upgrades
- mandatory data loggers for continuous crash research
- tethered wheels with two upgrades of specification
- rollhoop specification upgrade
- various tighning of anti flex wing rules
- external engine cut device for marshalls
- speed limiter in the pit lane
- in car flag signalling by lights
- mandatory sling points at roll hoop for quick car removal
- four power cuts to avoid dangerous cornering speeds
- medical signal monitoring
- precision GPS monitoring of vehicle positions
I cannot agree with you. The ultimate performance of a race car comes from power/weight ratio, downforce and the capability of the suspension and tyres to put the power down. Until the eighties race cars usually had some three to four hundred horse powers. There were always exceptions point given there. After the excess of the turbos power was usually kept between 700 and 900 bhp. I am sure that without power cuts and other curbing measures the 3.5 L engines would be cranking out 1600 bhp in race trim now.Belatti wrote:Power "cutting" doesn´t avoid dangerous cornering speeds, Aero cutting does.WhiteBlue wrote:four power cuts to avoid dangerous cornering speeds
(please sory for being so pedantic )
On the other hand tyre performance has also dramatically increased and we see nothing like the possible cornering power that slick tyres in a tyre war could deliver with the current geometry. So we should be aware that limitations are in place there as well. My view on tyre safety in F1 is very simple. A tyre should not fail! If a driver drives off the tread and the carcasse shows, well then a tyre failure is acceptable and if the tyre gets pierced by debris again you cannot stop that. but a sidewall in F1 should never fail. F1 is not run on oval tracks where you may abuse tyres to a degree that you cannot design them for 100% sidewall safety.
I do not need to remind people that aero is severely restricted. With unrestricted aerodynamics we would probably see 8 tons of downforce.
I want to make the point that all the performance generating factors have to be balanced in a good mix to give superior performance on street and road courses as F1 uses them and keep it reasonably safe at the same time. It is not good to let one parameter grow unchecked while the others are cut back in accordance with technical development.
Of course there is the factor of the track as well. Tracks are not generally subject to permanent performence enhancement as cars are in F1. They have become a lot safer due to chicanes, run offs and energy absorbing barriers. And there are a lot of new tracks which have been designed with high safety in mind in the first place.
Ciro will probably agree with me that Magny Course and Istanmbul are such places that offer considerable technical and driving challenge while provinding a lot of safety from the start. On the other hand you have traditional natural circuits like Monaco and Spa that were considerably more dangerous and got some attention in terms of safety over the year. I wonder what his ultimate circuit design would be. Something I do think that needs improving is the asphalt in Canada and the bumps in Brazil. Those two problems have remained over the years. I guess there are also some tracks that are simply silly by design and Hungary springs to mind.