The first corner crash at Spa has inevitably put a renewed focus on the FIA’s research into cockpit protection, which has been quietly progressing for some time.
Although ‘fighter’ canopies have been considered the emphasis is now on a bar arrangement, to ensure that the cockpits remain open.
McLaren technical director Paddy Lowe has, via the FIA Technical Working Group, been part of the process.
“In the TWG we’re working on it,” said Lowe after Sunday’s race in Spa. “We’ve been looking at two avenues, either the full screen, fighter aircraft technology, or some type of set of bars that would exist in front of the driver that would deflect any incoming wheel or a whole car.
“That one is the one that’s actually more active as a project, so it’s not going to cause a closed cockpit, but it would provide some defence against cars sliding along or landing from above.
“We’ve made a test piece which has been tested structurally with various impacts firing wheels at it. And that was successful, so we’ve understood some of the parameters in terms of the angles that are needed and the strength of the pieces.”
One of the key issues is to ensure that the driver’s view is not compromised.
“The next bit of work that’s currently in progress is assessing the visibility. We’ve done some work in our simulator. Obviously a driver ideally wants nothing in the way, but in the same way you drive a road car with pillars, or the old VW bus with a centre pillar, you get used to it don’t you? It’s one of those things, your mind works a way round it.
“That’s what we found in our simulator, provided the pillars don’t get too big then it’s something they can get used to. So we now have some parameters around what is an acceptable pillar size. The next bit it to try and produce a more optimum device – with that pillar size and this strength requirement can we make something that’s practical and what will that then look like, the current test piece looks pretty ugly, but it’s really a very prototype to just assess forces.”
Lowe says that the rules could be in place by 2014, when the new turbo era begins and cars have to undergo major changes anyway.
“I think 2014 has been the intended timescale as we started the project a year ago. Personally I think something is inevitable, because it is the one big exposure we’ve got. You see it time and again, and how many times do you think that was lucky? And you know one day it won’t be lucky, and we’ll all be sitting here saying we should have done something about that.
“At the same time it is an open cockpit formula, and it’s preserving that, but technically it’s achievable one way or another.”
Adam Cooper F1 
What an over-reaction. When was the last time a driver was killed by an object entering the cockpit? Tony Bryce back in the 70s perhaps? Although extremely sad such accidents are very rare. Covering the cockpit completely changes the concept of open cockpit racing.
Agreed.
Only thing that’s come close in recent years was the spring or whatever hitting Massa a few years ago.
Even then, its doubtful a roll-bar style cage would have stopped that, it wasn’t such a large part?
If they are going to force this then it really must be fully enclosed, but that would be terrible for the sport!
Completely agree, an unfortunate side effect of safety measures has been a serious increase in risk taking by drivers. It is difficult to say let them get hurt as s*ds law means it will always be the others that get hurt, but the only answer is a real clampdown on driver standards and acceptance that there will be some unfair penalties until driver standards in all formulae are improved
Last time? 1994 Imola, Ayrton Senna, surely, God rest his soul.
The open unguarded cockpit is an accident waiting to happen. There have been a number of close calls over recent years. I like the way the cars look, but there is too large an element of risk to ignore the potential danger.
A bit closer than the ’70s, Henry Surtees in 2009 is the first case that comes to mind. Senna was also killed by a blow to the helmet.
Both cases arguably might have been prevented by the current wheel tethers, but they’re probably not the only cases.
Article clearly states that, while a canopy has always been considered, pillars are what are being currently tested. The article also states that this is something they would like to address before something tragic happens. Some pro-active safety measures would be quite a refreshing concept, I think.
I’m all for it. Alonso’s crash was a bit too close for comfort and it’s only a matter of time before we see a death.
As Jackie Stewart once said, they’re paid to race, not to risk their lives!
Personally, I think there is a better compromise between safety & visibility.
1) Increase current cockpit head protection higher & further forward so rear half of crash helmet is in the indentation of cockpit protection – this will add significantly to side protection but not frontal protection.
To restore visibility lost from reduced head movement –
2) add blind spot sensors to supplement mirrors & maybe replace mirrors with rear view cameras
To reduce incidence of cars flying in the first place –
3) either enclose rear wheels with bodywork or fit 2012 indycar-style rear bumper
Can’t recall the races but Takuma Sato and Alex Wurz comes to mind on close calls.
The current believe in F1 and in sport in general is that a sport should not kill people. F1 is recognized as a global sport so the general public believes F1 should hold on to the believe that a sport should not kill (to be clear it’s a believe I also support). And with the general public having this opinion sponsors have also adopted this opinion (what do you think was the point in time that changed the opinion of the circuit owners in driver safety battle of the 70’s? Exactly it was when the sponsors also started to chip in on the subject. Money talks… (of course the driver strike also helped but circuits only actively started to change their mentality when the sponsors started to voice their concerns)).
And if you follow the safety mantra the only thing the FIA could do after the crashes of Henry Surtees (RIP) and Felipe Massa in 2009 was start an investigation on how to improve the safety on those types of accidents. The aesthetics of the car will certainly get worse and therefore my preference would have been a canopy. That way it is still possible to create something that is also good looking, but I’m afraid that the FIA will choose to preserve the open wheeler label attached to F1.
i’d like to see f1 move to LMP style cars… there are two parts to the problem now: 1. open cockpits, for which we’re trying to engineer a cure, and 2. exposed wheels, which creates a problem in the first place, so let’s focus on prevention first…
i think we’d need max to come back before that were to happen though, as we know how closed-minded the teams and indeed the fans can be to “new” ideas.