How has safety in Formula One improved since 1994?

[FormulaOneExP]

As part of my A-Levels i'm undertaking a qualification known as the Extended Project and for it i'm investigating 'How has safety in Formula One improved since 1994?'. I'm an avid fan of F1 and studying engineering currently so wanted to mix the two slightly. My question i believe can be split into two main sections with further sub-sections.
How has the safety of races improved? With the addition/improvements in;
 Safety Car
 Safety Flags
 Run-off areas
 Pit Lane
 Track Safety
And how has the safety of F1 cars advanced since the last death in Formula One?
 Driver Safety
 Recent Rule Changes
 Driver training
 Testing

The goal is then to answer my question of ‘How has safety improved the sport of Formula One since 1994? Fundamentally I want to know what changes were made after 1994 which was the last death in Formula One.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Looking for information in terms of reports, news, interviews, websites, books and relevant sources.

Thanks for your time!

Also i'm holding a poll in order to determine what you consider the most important part of safety.

[Maelstrom]

Safety in Formula 1 is something they still will be working on in every aspect. I wonder if you can really point a finger and say that one aspect was the most important one. This year it was the noses. Other years it could have been something else like pit lane speeds, etc.

But if I really had to choose i'd pick Track safety.

[WhiteBlue]

There are countless threads on exactly the same question. I suggest you study the history of safety in F1 by searching for one of these threads. They have numerous sources of excellent quality.

[strad]

You left off a button for those who think the push for safety has gone too far. They include even the likes of Jackie Stewart one of the primary champions of and for safety in F1.

[WhiteBlue]

Regarding the poll I think that your questions are creating a problem in themselves. The proper question would have been in car safety and not two options about car regulations and car engineering. The safety regulations for the cars are intrinsically mixed with the available technology. As pure technology goes nothing has probably beaten the invention of carbon fibre sandwich composites in terms of protecting drivers in crashes. On the other hand you have that covered by explicit crash tests that can only be passed successfully if you apply exactly that technology. So users could make either of the two choices and they would be talking of the same thing. If you go for car regulations you would also cover crash proof fuel tanks, tethered wheels and a bunch of other things that do not rely on carbon fibres but other technologies.

[thearmofbarlow]

Track safety means nothing. The only improvements that have mattered are those to the car. Yes, engineering and regulations are separate things. How anyone could be as pedantic as most here are and somehow not think that is beyond me. Without safety regulations you KNOW the teams wouldn't bother with it any more than they did thirty years ago. Without engineering the safety regulations couldn't be as strict. They go hand in hand but are not the same thing.

I do have to agree that the single biggest contributor to safety was the introduction of carbon fiber.

[Paul]

You can't make a statement like that, there is certain synergy between track and vehicle safety.

Take Perez's accident in Monaco- if it weren't for top-class barriers the consequences would've been much worse, regardless of the vehicle construction. At newer tracks similar accident would've probably ended with him stopping in a middle of tarmac run-off, again, regardless of vehicle construction.

[WhiteBlue]

Track safety means nothing. The only improvements that have mattered are those to the car.

This sounds like an extreme and pretty ignorant position to take. Why have the owners of F1 rated tracks spend billions of $$ since 1994 to build gravel traps, asphalt run offs, TecPro barriers, medical centrers at every track, and why they are employing hundreds of track safety people? Is this just embroidery? Or are they insane? I think the answer is pretty clear. Track safety plays an intrinsic role in the over all safety concept of F1 and impacts on the costs of the circuit owners and on the regulations. Perhaps you read Charlie Whitehead, the race director about this issue.

Charlie Whiting http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/pr ... lie-PC.pdf

Regulations have been changed over the years to keep speeds under control – and we have to keep speeds under control because we simply can’t keep modifying tracks to accommodate faster cars. Normally, that means more regulations. It’s why we don’t have fat tyres any more for example, and why we have smaller wings, shallower wings, narrower wings. Everything is driven to try to make the cars a little bit slower. Inevitably that leads to less scope for a designer.
There has been an argument that if teams had a fixed amount of money to spend the problem would naturally look after itself and they should be given complete freedom. Something like that would have to be very carefully thought about.

[JAllen]

First of all hello to all, always have a browse on here, but don't usually post!

I think Paul is correct to bring up the Perez monaco accident as a perfect example of the advances made since 1994. 4 points to consider on this one (at a glance):

1. Barriers were moved back after Buttons 2003 accident (I think) allowing for a greater deceleration before the car impacted the wall.

2. Tec pro barriers were installed in front of the wall, rather than tyres/lesser barriers.

3. Side impact protection mandatory in all f1 cars

4. Foam cock pit sides/surrounds preventing neck damage.

All of these factors played a part in reducing the damage done to Sergio's body. Without any one of the above, the forces involved in the accident would have been greater.

[Ian P.]

F1 has become incredibly safe especially when measured by results over the last 15 years.
Having grown up going to Watkins Glen (old and current versions), St. Jovite and Mossport, the improvements in Track Safety at modern F1 tracks is staggering. If a car goes off now, wheter something breaks or driver input, the consequences are nothing compared to pre 1994. The results are amazing and definitely worth while.

You only need to hang on to the F1 mentality and then go to other sporting venues to see that while F1 has made strides, the rest of the world doesn't give a s....t.
The example that comes to mind is the death at the 2010 olympics on the Luge track.
The blame was put on the person, but if you leave an opening and stick a steel column in the space, bad things will happen. Was it preventable, 100% it was. They just didn't consider what could happen.
The sad part is that the overall approach of "what can easily be done to reduce risk and results", just doesn't happen.
In F1 you need to manage the probabilities because the consequences are waaay beyond acceptable. Nascar gets it, for the same reasons.

[marcush.]

the safety levels provided by the cars have chnged the face of formula 1 as in the days back then you could not afford some of the behaviour of todays drivers as it would simply end their lives within a few races.(See gilles Villeneuve compare to his son ) .This is generally helped or supported by the new crop of tracks where leaving the track is not doing any harm to your health..

[strad]

the safety levels provided by the cars have chnged the face of formula 1 as in the days back then you could not afford some of the behaviour of todays drivers as it would simply end their lives within a few races.(See gilles Villeneuve compare to his son ) .This is generally helped or supported by the new crop of tracks where leaving the track is not doing any harm to your health..

.
+100

[thearmofbarlow]

This sounds like an extreme and pretty ignorant position to take. Why have the owners of F1 rated tracks spend billions of $$ since 1994 to build gravel traps, asphalt run offs, TecPro barriers, medical centrers at every track, and why they are employing hundreds of track safety people? Is this just embroidery? Or are they insane? I think the answer is pretty clear. Track safety plays an intrinsic role in the over all safety concept of F1 and impacts on the costs of the circuit owners and on the regulations. Perhaps you read Charlie Whitehead, the race director about this issue.

Charlie Whiting http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/pr ... lie-PC.pdf

Regulations have been changed over the years to keep speeds under control – and we have to keep speeds under control because we simply can’t keep modifying tracks to accommodate faster cars. Normally, that means more regulations. It’s why we don’t have fat tyres any more for example, and why we have smaller wings, shallower wings, narrower wings. Everything is driven to try to make the cars a little bit slower. Inevitably that leads to less scope for a designer.
There has been an argument that if teams had a fixed amount of money to spend the problem would naturally look after itself and they should be given complete freedom. Something like that would have to be very carefully thought about.

As I brought up in another thread about this subject, Mark Webber would be dead if he was in a '93 spec car and did that same backflip. Ralf Schumacher would be dead had he crashed at Indy in '93 and not '04. Senna would most likely be alive were he to have crashed in a modern car. Go back through the deaths in F1 and find me one where the track was the direct contributor to someone's death. In the vast majority of instances, if not all, a properly safe car would have been enough to have saved the drivers. It takes an absolute freak accident (Dan Wheldon) for a track to contribute to an injury or death directly.

If anything Whiting's statement supports my argument. He is saying, in essence, that making the cars safer is more important (and cheaper and easier) than making the tracks safer. Limiting speeds is part of that car safety, not tracks safety. Runoff areas, TecPro, none of that really matters if the car is designed properly and that includes built-in limits on speed/grip.

[thearmofbarlow]

For the record, and since it was brought up, I see proper medical facilities and personnel as necessities as are properly trained marshals. This is true for any track anywhere, not just in F1.

[WhiteBlue]

Just for your information. Not even the best safety measures can save a driver if crash speeds and g-forces exceed certain levels. This is the reason why F1 cars are slowed down if possible in an economic way.

And if you don't believe in this point you better believe that there has never been a tether designed that will keep all wheels on the car in every accident situation. Therefore track designers work very hard to absorb most of the motion energy before a car hits a barrier and starts shredding components. You definitely want to prevent any wheels coming off and hit people.

I'm disappointed that you do not understand the FiA policy of providing high circuit safety. As I have earlier said the gravel traps, asphalt run offs and TecPro barriers have cost an awful lot of money which wasn't spent without a point. Charlie just says that the FiA cannot impose even higher burdens on the track owners. Hence they will limit the speeds in the future and will not allow increasing the performance of the cars.