Generally speaking you see a lot less big accidents on corners with no run off area
Generally speaking you see a lot less big accidents on corners with no run off area
I don't want to go off topic on my own post, but the racing in BTCC really gets on my nerves. I went to watch the final once at Brands in the 90's and one of the Volvos was about to win the race (and championship) but a Vauxhall quite blatantly barged him into the gravel at Clearways to stop him winning. Ever since Audi/Alfa/Volvo left the BTCC it's gone downhill.
Give people a safetly net and they will use it . . . . .
Even the cars are designed to take into account all the new safety factors and to exploit them. Such is the nature of competition.
I love watching Monaco. Close, to the wall and making the cars operate on teh limit of their design brief . . .
If the tracks where surrounded by walls people adapt their driving and car designs to suit. More safetly 'areas' does not nessesarily mean safer racing . . .
Even the cars are designed to take into account all the new safety factors and to exploit them. Such is the nature of competition.
I love watching Monaco. Close, to the wall and making the cars operate on teh limit of their design brief . . .
If the tracks where surrounded by walls people adapt their driving and car designs to suit. More safetly 'areas' does not nessesarily mean safer racing . . .
Agree with you there about the BTCC.
Shouldnt that be Wendlinger at Monaco driving a Sauber?
He crashed at the chicane and got serious head injuries wich almost killed him just two weeks after Imola.
/Fredrik
It's a very poor sport if it needs to have deadly risks to stay interesting.
I for one don't want to see racers kill themselves. I'd be more interested in a sport where you can watch close fights, see the drivers work at the wheel, and where driving skills are more important than multimillion-$$ technology. (And such a sport exists: it's called karting.)
Sadly, it's F1 that attracts the crowds, the cameras, and the sponsors. Fatalities and loudly roaring engines do seem to work.
(To those who think F1 has become "too safe": suppose they arrange things so that each year 1 or 2 drivers have a fatal accident. Would that improve things?)
I for one don't want to see racers kill themselves. I'd be more interested in a sport where you can watch close fights, see the drivers work at the wheel, and where driving skills are more important than multimillion-$$ technology. (And such a sport exists: it's called karting.)
Sadly, it's F1 that attracts the crowds, the cameras, and the sponsors. Fatalities and loudly roaring engines do seem to work.
(To those who think F1 has become "too safe": suppose they arrange things so that each year 1 or 2 drivers have a fatal accident. Would that improve things?)
All 3 of those accidents, plus Barrichellos at Imola, Andrea Montermini's at Barcelona led Sauber to develop the high cockpit sides which later became mandatory, the ride height plank, larger cockpit openings (also brought on my Hakkinens Adelaide crash), and numerous other safety improvements.
However, motor racing never will, and should not ever be, totally safe. By all means protect the driver somewhat, but keep an element of risk. It's what drives people to do motor-racing.
However, motor racing never will, and should not ever be, totally safe. By all means protect the driver somewhat, but keep an element of risk. It's what drives people to do motor-racing.
F1 is IMO too safe. That doesn't mean it should have a large number of injuries because there shouldn't be such a large number of big crashes. It is ridiculous IMO that F1 is as dangerous as historic racing. In club racing you have none of the car safety that you do in F1, and often small run off areas. I've never seen an accident which resulted in anything worse than concusion and a few broken bones. In F1 the same kind of mistakes (ie. rolling at 90mph after clipping wheels down a straight) wouldn't of done as much as prik the finger of an F1 driver with their safety nets.
My biggest problem with F1 is that no one here has mentioned the several fatalities to marshals and spectators which have occured since 1994.
My biggest problem with F1 is that no one here has mentioned the several fatalities to marshals and spectators which have occured since 1994.
Formula one is supposed to be the pinnacle of open wheel racing. And in such you expect to be taken for a seat of the pants ride with all the inherant risks.
Of course a unnesessary death is a bad thing, please don't confuse me with someone who takes human life lightly, but to be a racing driver you have to be prepared to place your life on the line. Surely they do that everytime they strap into the cockpit and rev the engine. It must cross their minds that this could be their last race. Racing is dangerous. It's a fundemental basis of racing. By defintion racing needs that 'edge', that flirtation with extremes. These guys are supposed to be racing on the edge, but if you keep moving the edge further and further away from them they're eventually just gunna be commuting to their next pay check.
Sportmen die. It's the nature of the beast, be it on the football field, in a derby or on the racetrack. It's one of the things that makes sport, sport.
Of course a unnesessary death is a bad thing, please don't confuse me with someone who takes human life lightly, but to be a racing driver you have to be prepared to place your life on the line. Surely they do that everytime they strap into the cockpit and rev the engine. It must cross their minds that this could be their last race. Racing is dangerous. It's a fundemental basis of racing. By defintion racing needs that 'edge', that flirtation with extremes. These guys are supposed to be racing on the edge, but if you keep moving the edge further and further away from them they're eventually just gunna be commuting to their next pay check.
Sportmen die. It's the nature of the beast, be it on the football field, in a derby or on the racetrack. It's one of the things that makes sport, sport.
I think most people remember him, but the reason why he wasnt mentioned here is (I think) because the ride height of his car did not play a role during his accident.
Senna's accident might have been caused by his car bottoming out. He had probably cold tyres, thus lower tyrepressure, causing lower ride height in the first laps after the safetycar. I know there is also this theory about a breaking steeringshaft, but Im not sure if they ever found out what the real cause was.
So to prevent bottoming out of the cars, they introduced the plank. I believe on some occasions wear greater then 1mm was allowed, because of high curbstones or something...? I think it was Spa.
FIA is really great at destroying motorsport and making it more boring but the problem in larger scale is actually super talented engineers. 
They invented TC and other driving aids that are the lamest thing ever in motorsport.
I think the actual car safety and the fact that how hard the cars are to drive are totally separate things. Of course the tracks were awful 40-20 years ago what comes to driver or spectator safety but I think harder handling cars today wouldn't increase dangerous crashing that much. If just the safety things were up to date.
WRC rally is good example that safety doesn't always go hand-in-hand with the powerful specs. Modern cars are much safer but even that they are less powerful (Group B's 500/600 hp vs. 300 hp) they are way faster than ever before. It's kind of stupid to even dream about a scenario were cars would be specs-wise similar to the Group Bs but with modern safety instructions, but I'd bet that wouldn't increase dangerous crashing at all because cars would go actually slower than now because they wouldn't have all the technical crap that makes driving rather easy (for a professional driver) and very boring to watch. Instead of fatal crashing (like FIA obviously thinks) drivers would be again real heros or "gods".
wtf, I started to talk about rallying even this thread has nothing to do with it.
They invented TC and other driving aids that are the lamest thing ever in motorsport.I think the actual car safety and the fact that how hard the cars are to drive are totally separate things. Of course the tracks were awful 40-20 years ago what comes to driver or spectator safety but I think harder handling cars today wouldn't increase dangerous crashing that much. If just the safety things were up to date.
WRC rally is good example that safety doesn't always go hand-in-hand with the powerful specs. Modern cars are much safer but even that they are less powerful (Group B's 500/600 hp vs. 300 hp) they are way faster than ever before. It's kind of stupid to even dream about a scenario were cars would be specs-wise similar to the Group Bs but with modern safety instructions, but I'd bet that wouldn't increase dangerous crashing at all because cars would go actually slower than now because they wouldn't have all the technical crap that makes driving rather easy (for a professional driver) and very boring to watch. Instead of fatal crashing (like FIA obviously thinks) drivers would be again real heros or "gods".
wtf, I started to talk about rallying even this thread has nothing to do with it.
Well it's such a long time ago, I actially thought Sauber raised the cockpits already after the Ratzenbergers (which drove Simtek at the time being) crash, but you could be right, cause as I remember Wendlingers injuries also resulted due to extreme "head shaking" (sorry don't know how to put it in words but you know what I mean)
yeah I also remember that someone from Williams (don't know who it was) made a statement that they had problems with the cars when it bottomed. It was something like their car reacted very exteme on bottoming compared to other cars.
I remember watching a program about the Senna crash and it seemed like the basic physics of it were that at the time, the cars got massive downforce from large flat bottoms, but when you bottomed out the front of the undertray, it cut off the airflow accross the whole undertray, momentarily reducing the downforce by a substantial amount.
So what the plank did was force the main bulk of the undertray upwards by quite a lot, so that firstly you got less undertray downforce, but also if the plank bottomed out, it only cut off a little bit of the airflow under the car, and the air could still flow freely under the side areas, maintaining some downforce.
So what the plank did was force the main bulk of the undertray upwards by quite a lot, so that firstly you got less undertray downforce, but also if the plank bottomed out, it only cut off a little bit of the airflow under the car, and the air could still flow freely under the side areas, maintaining some downforce.
Yes that's right but some cars weren't affected by that as extreme as the FW16 was. Now if this is because the Williams had a general problem that the car bottomed more easily or such things is difficult to tell. I mean every team surely tried to lower the car as much as they could (for a given track/setup) and perhaps Williams was too extreme in the setups leaving no gap for errors. Still it would be rather strange as this team was no rookie team. But then again for the '94 season active suspensions had been forbidden and this could also have caused that teams had to learn the limits of ride heights. Well speculations don't change anything, was a sad year.
Probably because of Eau Rouge? Posted it somewhere on the forums here before, but I do it again, it's such a nice pic.
Looks more like he's hit a patch of sand (there's more in front of him) than wood dust, but v. nice picture.
Might just be from other cars planks from throughout the race/practice/qual.
Looks like sawdust to me
Well, it is wood. If you look at the ideal line you see it everywhere. It tried this in GP4 btw, and there the car hits the ground on the same place.
I can see why the fia want to make f1 safe, no one wants to have dead drivers. So all the cars havin higher sides, better crash protection i agree with. I just disagree with things like TC that take from the drivers skill and take the risk away. I know taking things like TC away would lower safety but IMO would be alot more interesting as driver skill would really show through.
Saying all this though - i also see F1 as the pinicle (spelling?) of motorsport and it has always developed new things. It has always pushed the boundires of motorsport and so it should.
Really there are arguemnt for both gettin rid of things like TC but also reaosn for keeping it. I personally think that it should b outlowed.
As for my comment earlier on the BTCC IMO the btcc prime was the era of nissan primeras, audi (cant remember which car) vauxhall vectras, ford mondeos etc. Its not perfect, some of the time passes are made simply by pushing the other person off the road, which is unfair. But i said i like it when they get side by side and rub and then botn continue racing. As i said some of the pushing and barging is unfair, but IMO at time it is exciting.
As for the no one remember Ratzenberger, everyone always remember Senna. I think this is due to the fact senna was forumla 1's big star at the time. I mean this as in if Ide died at the next race it wuld be remembered, but if both Ide and alonso died, alonso would b the more remembered. Saying that though it was a sad week end to loose both ratxenburger and senna.
Saying all this though - i also see F1 as the pinicle (spelling?) of motorsport and it has always developed new things. It has always pushed the boundires of motorsport and so it should.
Really there are arguemnt for both gettin rid of things like TC but also reaosn for keeping it. I personally think that it should b outlowed.
As for my comment earlier on the BTCC IMO the btcc prime was the era of nissan primeras, audi (cant remember which car) vauxhall vectras, ford mondeos etc. Its not perfect, some of the time passes are made simply by pushing the other person off the road, which is unfair. But i said i like it when they get side by side and rub and then botn continue racing. As i said some of the pushing and barging is unfair, but IMO at time it is exciting.
As for the no one remember Ratzenberger, everyone always remember Senna. I think this is due to the fact senna was forumla 1's big star at the time. I mean this as in if Ide died at the next race it wuld be remembered, but if both Ide and alonso died, alonso would b the more remembered. Saying that though it was a sad week end to loose both ratxenburger and senna.
one question ive always felt to n00bish to ask, why did Senna crash?
I don't mind the safety features in F1 cars, it's the safety REGULATIONS I dislike. The FIA has too much say in what happens to cars/tracks, when F1 has always been about pushing technology to the limit to make the fastest possible cars; whether it's from 6-wheeled Tyrells, to cars with fans to suck them to the ground. Bring back the days of technical innovation, I don't care if TC is included. That said, the main problem with F1 isn't the cars, it's the uninspiring tracks. F1 goes to whoever pays the most, so new, "safe" (boring) tracks make up most of the calendar. Tracks like Shanghai, which seem to have no soul or defining features. We need to get tracks like Brands GP, Laguna Seca, Donnington. These are tracks that are interesting for people to watch on TV, and tracks that the drivers love to race on, they're fed up with slow 1st and 2nd gear corners, they want speed, they want danger. I know it's not F1, but one of Valentino Rossi's favourite tracks is Donnington, and other riders love the thrill of the Corkscrew.
Greboth, if you want to see fast racing with no TC, ABS or other driver aids, check out A1GP. The TV coverage may not be up to much, but the racing is close and intense, especially the street circuits. I was at the opening round at Brands and it was a wonderful sight to behold them tearing down Paddock Hill on the opening lap.
Greboth, if you want to see fast racing with no TC, ABS or other driver aids, check out A1GP. The TV coverage may not be up to much, but the racing is close and intense, especially the street circuits. I was at the opening round at Brands and it was a wonderful sight to behold them tearing down Paddock Hill on the opening lap.
There was no definitive conclusion reached in the end. There was a theory his steering column broke, there was a thoery he bottomed out due to cold tyres, there was a theory he ran over debris and got a puncture, there wasa theory he blacked out (he used to hold his breath during really quick laps to focus), there was a theory someone shot him (okay we're into the conspiracy theories now, so I'll stop).
In short no one knows. It's highyl likely he didn't really either.
I once read an article about that which was based on the results of an investigation that included the FIA and Williams. I'm sorry, but I can't remember anymore where I found that.
In this article they ripped the whole telemetry data of the accident apart and gave an explanation to what had happened.
The bottom line was that Senna, in an effort to go faster, slightly missed the apex of the old Tamburello curve and went a bit wide. Doing so he crossed a bump on the road surface that you don't cross when driving on the ideal line. As a result (I forgot if he was bottoming out or if just a loss of contact by the suspension occured) he lost grip for a short moment, left the grippy part of the track completely and had no more chance of recovery - being at very high speed on a dirty part of the track he just went straight off the road and smashed into the wall.
I still remember that the data showed that Sennas reaction time was some kind of supernatural. IIRC he reacted to the bump in just slightly more than 1/10 of a second. AFAIK an average human being has a reaction time of 1/3 of a second.
No evidence for a broken steering was found.
But one should also remember, that he wasn't primarily killed by the impact itself, but by a part of the suspension that went through his helmet visor right into his head.
The Plank
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