The safety thread, racing and on the road

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WhiteBlue
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The safety thread, racing and on the road

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It was suggested that we have a bit of a discussion on safe racing and driving. So perhaps one of the moderators can transfer the relevant piece of this thread here please!

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.
  • 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
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 ....
Belatti wrote:
WhiteBlue wrote:four power cuts to avoid dangerous cornering speeds
Power "cutting" doesn´t avoid dangerous cornering speeds, Aero cutting does.
(please sory for being so pedantic :lol: )
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.

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.
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Belatti
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Re: The safety thread, racing and on the road

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WhiteBlue wrote:
Belatti wrote:
WhiteBlue wrote:four power cuts to avoid dangerous cornering speeds
Power "cutting" doesn´t avoid dangerous cornering speeds, Aero cutting does.
(please sory for being so pedantic :lol: )
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...
First you talk about cornering speeds and then you talk about "ultimate performance". I know you "are here to discuss" as your sign tells, but try to sick to what you first said instead of want to be profesor "I know it all" :x

No matter what I say, you will go and say: "No because... but... blablalbla"

The ultimate car performance comes from what you said.
Cornering speeds comes from weight, mechanical and aero grip. More or less power doesn´t modify cornering speeds. You were wrong. Be a man. Admit it!

And BTW, the Ferrari 312T from 1975 was the first F1 to reach 500HP, maybe 30 more than Cosworths, so your numbers are a bit lower. By 1980 any F1 engine produced 550HP.
"You need great passion, because everything you do with great pleasure, you do well." -Juan Manuel Fangio

"I have no idols. I admire work, dedication and competence." -Ayrton Senna

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WhiteBlue
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Re: The safety thread, racing and on the road

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Belatti wrote:...Cornering speeds comes from weight, mechanical and aero grip. More or less power doesn´t modify cornering speeds. You were wrong. Be a man. Admit it!..
Perhaps I can make my point a bit clearer. In F1 with wings and other aerodynamic devices obviously strait line speed can be traded for downforce in order to corner faster in the fast turns that depend of downforce. Team always have to make this delicate trade offs. Now I want you to consider the effect of say additional 100 bhp to an identical car set up for 500 bhp. The obvious impact on the trade off would be a higher downforce setting. To get much more top speed also comes with the penalty of having to accelerate and work against drag that builds up exponentially with speed. Lap times can be much easier slashed by using more downforce which will lead to increasing cornering speeds and probably only a little increase in top speed. This is why absolute power level also influences the cornering speeds (the rest of the car being equal except for wing settings).
Formula One's fundamental ethos is about success coming to those with the most ingenious engineering and best .............................. organization, not to those with the biggest budget. (Dave Richards)

Belatti
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Your point is clear now, sir! So that was a different story!

Today aero rules are someway "open" cause they only states dimentions and no flexibility. Then what you mention can be achieved.

If aero gizmos were forbiden, no matter how much power, you would have to take downforce only from front and rear wings. They would stall if you increase angle of attack before you get the downforce you want.

Then I would focus the reduction of cornering speeds from cuting aero "almost 0 road relevant" instead of power. It would be like having a Lotus 49 with 900 HP! :shock:
"You need great passion, because everything you do with great pleasure, you do well." -Juan Manuel Fangio

"I have no idols. I admire work, dedication and competence." -Ayrton Senna

Scotracer
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Re: The safety thread, racing and on the road

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Cornering speeds are only limited by power when drag comes into play. For instance, certain corners in 2006 (when the cars had more grip than the V10s in 2005) were taken at the same speed or lower because they purely couldn't get to the high speed in the first place.

I think what is required is that the cars have more straight line performance than cornering capability. This would make the cars much more dramatic to watch and not the very flowing and smooth cars that we have now (they have far too much grip for their power).

Just my 2 pence.
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WhiteBlue
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Re: The safety thread, racing and on the road

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My view is that safety relies on a carefull balance of power/weight, downforce and traction with track features.

If you want permanent competition in car design and development you need to have restrictions. The original 2009 tech regs (2006 version)proposed fixed downforce. I thought that was a good idea. You can compete with whatever shape you want by reducing drag. I'm not saying it would be practical but it is an interesting starting point. With such a rule development would be aimed at reducing drag and improving efficiency.

With engines and regeneration one could also take a similar approach by limiting the available energy and forcing the competition to get lap time improvements from higher efficiency. The difficult trick is to set limitations in such away that exciting racing would result. F1 should always be the highest performing open wheel formula for road racing with competing designs. It isn't easy to balance all this.

I wonder what kind of developments the circuits should take. Perhaps variety is the answer. There should be different challenges as we had them in the past. If we get more races as it looks likely I think that some longer tracks with elevation changes like Spa would be nice. Safety features like the Tecpro barriers and the asphalt run offs seem to be on the right path. For the street circuits they need to pay a lot of attention to avoid dangers such as the chicane after the tunnel in Monaco that almost got Wendlinger in 1994. I'm sure Ciro could go on for a long time telling us what F1 should be doing in terms of tracks in order to have exciting and safe races.
Formula One's fundamental ethos is about success coming to those with the most ingenious engineering and best .............................. organization, not to those with the biggest budget. (Dave Richards)

Ogami musashi
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Re: The safety thread, racing and on the road

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I think many views here and there do not hold true to the reality of driving.

For example saying that we would have 8 tons of downforce, you have to know that already now with the actual levels, some corners are taken faster by having less downforce, because more of it decreases the tyre's grip to the point you have less grip.

Also some corners are acceleration limited (which is a kind of drag limited but not only).

Many of them are also dependent on the configurations you have.

On one track because there's one big staight line or even a long bend, you'll get a lower downforce level, while on another similar but without the straight/bend you'll go for higher downforce.

My point is that there's no one answer to the racing safety and quality.

Is it really necessary to decrease cornering speeds? i'm not quite sure.

Again an example of how complex is the topic, is that cars with grooved tyres tend to spin easier and are not slowed down as fast as with slicks tyres, so with the same cornering speeds you would surely have more safety.

The example is with LMP cars, that tend to take of with yaw. You can't say that it is the speed that creates it.


We also have not to forget that safety like performance increases. Why always wanting to cut down performance thinking we stay with the same level of safety??

There's been more fatalities when cars used to corner at 1G max in F1 than since 20 years ago.

I'm not saying speed is not dangerous, it is, and clearly when something occurs, the faster the worst but i think we should not react compulsively saying "let's cut it!"

FIA has done it and reasons why safety has increased is far more because of structure safety increase, hans and run offs design than slower cornering speeds that by way..are faster (overall).

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WhiteBlue
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Re: The safety thread, racing and on the road

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Ogami musashi wrote:... The example is with LMP cars, that tend to take of with yaw. You can't say that it is the speed that creates it...
With LMP cars the speed increase is obviouisly mainly from tyre development giving more speed in corners, at least this ius what the experts are saying. If the higher performance has no effect on the safety how do you explain that we see this spate of accidents now and not a year ago when cars were slower?
Ogami musashi wrote:...We also have not to forget that safety like performance increases. Why always wanting to cut down performance thinking we stay with the same level of safety??
the reward for increasing safety is not having to watch drivers getting injured and killed so often. we should not forget that is still happening in motorsport.

In my view extremes of grip in high speed cornering isn't necessary to distinguish F1. You do not need 5g of lateral excelleration. 3g is enough. nobody can see what the drivers have to do in the cars to endure those forces. it adds nothing to the sport but higher risk. I am quite happy for the high speed cornering to be cut infavour of more grip in slower corners and higher speed on straits.

If you take the old Tamburello for instance. Any safety component failure like wings, tyres, steering or wheel rims could pitch you into that wall with deadly force. Senna's accident 94 showed us that a lot of things can happen. those particular risks have been reduced by improved vehicle safety and by putting chicanes in front of fast corners that had no run offs. which brings me back to the impact of cornering speeds on tracks.

The cornering speed has a direct relationship to safe dimensioning of run offs. From 94 to 2004 run offs have been steadily increased in size and spectators have been forced farer and farer away from the tracks because of this. Safe run off distances increase by the square of the cornering speed. this is another good reason to limit high speed cornering to a sensible level. It costs an arm and a leg for the circuits and does in effect reduce the spectacle for race visitors.

so there are good reasons not to make fetish of speed regardless of other aspects. what we probably all want is good racing with safe cars and tracks and some mixing of fortunes now and then by the technical development.
Formula One's fundamental ethos is about success coming to those with the most ingenious engineering and best .............................. organization, not to those with the biggest budget. (Dave Richards)

Ogami musashi
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What i mean is that, it is not because you are faster that you're less safe.

The problems with current LMP1 cars occurred in different situations and should not be confused.
In addition the root of the problem is in the design itself.

As for high cornering, run off areas are one thing, spectators placement another, what i mean is that it is arguable that run off areas decrease spectacle but that has no link with safety.

Also, to illustrate the main point saying "speed worsen things but is not the problem", less cornering speed thus less run off doesn't mean closer spectators, as any debris can fly at a sufficient speed to kill someone even under 3G instead of 5G.

Look at monaco for example.

Conceptual
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Re: The safety thread, racing and on the road

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Ogami musashi wrote:What i mean is that, it is not because you are faster that you're less safe.

The problems with current LMP1 cars occurred in different situations and should not be confused.
In addition the root of the problem is in the design itself.

As for high cornering, run off areas are one thing, spectators placement another, what i mean is that it is arguable that run off areas decrease spectacle but that has no link with safety.

Also, to illustrate the main point saying "speed worsen things but is not the problem", less cornering speed thus less run off doesn't mean closer spectators, as any debris can fly at a sufficient speed to kill someone even under 3G instead of 5G.

Look at monaco for example.
I guess what you are saying is that the cars have been running at speeds high enough to kill people, and that going faster doesn't mean that they will kill people harder.

I understand the desire to make racing more safe, but racing by deffinition is dangerous and life threatening. I agree with the comment that lowering the cornering G's from 5 to 3 isn't going to make it any safer.

I have given alot of thought to a "Panic" system that can auto-stabilize and stop the car, and I have a few ideas, but all of them would take ALOT of refinement to make them practical. Especially the one that requires embedded sensors to be placed around the track to activate the Panic system.

Anyways, Kubica proved last year that even a 75G shunt can be mitigated by creative and imaginative innovation of design.

Lets just hope that it continues to get better!

Chris

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Re: The safety thread, racing and on the road

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Ogami musashi wrote:The problems with current LMP1 cars occurred in different situations and should not be confused.
In addition the root of the problem is in the design itself.
This I do not understand. Please elaborate!

Ogami musashi wrote:As for high cornering, run off areas are one thing, spectators placement another, what i mean is that it is arguable that run off areas decrease spectacle but that has no link with safety.
My point was that increasing cornering speed requires wider run offs to provide similar safety. If a car goes out of control due to driver error or component failure worst case is impact at high speed without energy absorbing barriers at an angle of low crash absorption of the car.

To avoid that kind of scenaria hundreds of hectars have been dedicated to run offs and millions been spend for energy absorbing barriers. the barriers only cost money. The run offs also force the grand stands further and further away from the tracks. So this is not beneficial to the spectacle.

One of the attractions of Monaco is the closeness you can get to the track. It is no coincidence that Monaco is the slowest track on the calendar. So in terms of spectator value average lap speed isn't always the thing to go for.
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Re: The safety thread, racing and on the road

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Larger run-offs are generally necessary when it comes to higher speed cornering but look at modern run-offs - they are tarmac, not gravel. What implications does this have? Well, in the past more gravel meant more decelleration but nowadays with tarmac, the cars don't slow down that much if they have a failure over any specific distance of tarmac. So, I think there should be another analysis of run-off design as if a car makes a mistake in a high-speed corner, in a modern F1 car it usually means they have run wide -- now exactly requiring a massive run-off area. If however they have a failure, the run off size is almost irrelevant as the tarmac doesn't cause the cars to slow down all that much.

The point of this: stop making run-off areas bigger and invest in new absorbent materials for barriers. I mean, we've been using old car tyres for what must be 50 years -- I'm sure there's a better solution.
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WhiteBlue
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Re: The safety thread, racing and on the road

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Scotracer wrote:Larger run-offs are generally necessary when it comes to higher speed cornering but look at modern run-offs - they are tarmac, not gravel. What implications does this have? Well, in the past more gravel meant more decelleration but nowadays with tarmac, the cars don't slow down that much if they have a failure over any specific distance of tarmac. So, I think there should be another analysis of run-off design as if a car makes a mistake in a high-speed corner, in a modern F1 car it usually means they have run wide -- now exactly requiring a massive run-off area. If however they have a failure, the run off size is almost irrelevant as the tarmac doesn't cause the cars to slow down all that much.

The point of this: stop making run-off areas bigger and invest in new absorbent materials for barriers. I mean, we've been using old car tyres for what must be 50 years -- I'm sure there's a better solution.
1. There is pretty good scientific knowledge that tarmac slows cars more than gravel traps do.

2. TecPro is better than tyres. Have a look the technology.
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Re: The safety thread, racing and on the road

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WhiteBlue wrote:
Scotracer wrote:Larger run-offs are generally necessary when it comes to higher speed cornering but look at modern run-offs - they are tarmac, not gravel. What implications does this have? Well, in the past more gravel meant more decelleration but nowadays with tarmac, the cars don't slow down that much if they have a failure over any specific distance of tarmac. So, I think there should be another analysis of run-off design as if a car makes a mistake in a high-speed corner, in a modern F1 car it usually means they have run wide -- now exactly requiring a massive run-off area. If however they have a failure, the run off size is almost irrelevant as the tarmac doesn't cause the cars to slow down all that much.

The point of this: stop making run-off areas bigger and invest in new absorbent materials for barriers. I mean, we've been using old car tyres for what must be 50 years -- I'm sure there's a better solution.
1. There is pretty good scientific knowledge that tarmac slows cars more than gravel traps do.

2. TecPro is better than tyres. Have a look the technology.
Saying tarmac slows cars better than gravel is a very broad statement -- it is completely dependent on circumstances.

For instance, if a car has a brake failure and spears off the track, the rolling resistance on tarmac will be less than that of gravel. Of course, if a car just runs wide but it still travelling forward the driver can brake accordingly (which further proves my point in reducing sizes of run offs).

And I just looked at TecPro -- that's very good technology. The FIA should be subsidising this instead of mandating more strict crash testing and increasing of run off areas. If that stuff had been used, in conjunction with tarmac at Campsa corner at Barcelona, I wonder how Heikki's accident would have turned out.
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guy_smiley
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Re: The safety thread, racing and on the road

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Safety is paramount, but the topic of slowing the cars down really sticks in my side. A few things....

Runoff. If it were up to me, fast and classic circuits which were deemed unsafe and consequently removed from the calendar would simply have more runoff area. There would be an adequate amount of tarmac so drivers could recover from mistakes, then a gravel trap in case of failures, then the aforementioned tecpro barrier. There is a reason the drivers want to win at monaco, monza, spa and silverstone--they are classic, fast (well not monaco) and un-fooled around with. When was the last time you heard a driver say "If I could win one GP this season, it would be Bahrain." For me the spectacle (the grandstand placement) isn't really an issue because you can put the grandstands around any part of the corner. If you think of it as 360 degrees, you can't put the stands in about 20-60 degrees of that circle given the nature of the corner, but you still have a huge amount of area for stands.

Slowing the cars. A few drivers have expressed the opinion, which I share, that F1 cars should be the fastest, most technologically advanced racing machines in the world, and when you mess with the cars you mess with that image. Plenty of members here have expressed their fears that F1 is so close to GP2 and so have drivers. Here in the states Ricardo Zonta set the lap record around Laguna Seca in his Toyota's F1 car and the record was quickly broken by the Champ Cars during their preseason testing--if you ask me that's just wrong! :D

Cornering speed. I'm no expert here, but I was thinking about Eau Rouge and how we don't really see huge shunts there anymore even though the cars of today and the past couple of years are much faster. Today's cars are taking it flat out no problem and getting through without a problem, whereas slower cars (think Jacques Villeneuve and his old BAR :D ) would crash more often. Anyway, basically what I like are the ole greats. I think it would just be sooo cool to watch modern day F1ers going round the old osterreichring and classics like that.

My rant is done :D I'm not picking on anyone or anything, I'm just expressing my dream for F1 circuits :D
Smiles all 'round!

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