the problems with formula in general are open cockpit and no bodywork around the wheel. It is a security and aerodynamic problem (formula one's Cx is around 0.9 whereas Porsche 911's is 0.26)

So if you want to have a car totally safe you need closed LMP...that is totally non sense.

more : I don't know exactly the weight of a wheel in formula one, but I suppose it is about 5kg+ so finally your windscreen have to be really really strong to stop it ! Look at that : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i4xN0vfpUk

if you want some example of how dangerous an open cockpit is, you only have to remember what kill Senna.

Calm down.

Quote :

Full scientific results have now been presented to the Formula One Technical Working Group. What happens next will depend on the reaction of the FIA and the TWG to Mellor’s findings.

Any debate on implementation of cockpit canopies would have to take account of a number of known negatives, such as visibility, optical quality, ventilation, cleaning, access and emergency egress.

“We’re not looking at any of these things at the moment,” says Mellor. “This test was purely to look into the mechanical safety effect. Now that we have data on that, we can move towards a decision on what’s next.”

http://www.formula1.com/news/features/2011/7/12314.html

If they make it to a real think, a quick relase wire is not a hard technic

Quote from tinvek :

what is scary is what happened to the wheel after it hit the canopy, given how low the canopy is (i.e.) on the ground) and the wheel was doing 140mph, any guesses how far away the wheel went after it was deflected?
























1 mile !!!!!!

I hear the commentator line in my inner ear: Oh, wow, that feature just saved the life of the driver! Wait a second? Why did panic broke loose in the stands? Oh my god! The tyre just hit the spectators! -.- Or in other words: Let's make a modern LeMans '55!

Quote from scania :

If they make it to a real think, a quick relase wire is not a hard technic

wrong it is damn hard : rain, temperature, safety (quick exit from the car, doors locking, ...), ... There are some reason why they are still some open prototyp at Le Mans

Quote from MoMo92i :

wrong it is damn hard : rain, temperature, safety (quick exit from the car, doors locking, ...), ... There are some reason why they are still some open prototyp at Le Mans

The only reason is money, actually. Air conditioning and visibility are overcomable but speed advantage isn't. Also closed LMPs are probably safer but the cockpits are not really that comparable to what FIA has been thinking about.

Open Cockpit, Closed Cockpit, I really don't mind as long as it makes the cars faster. It's about the speed. What's the point of racing in F1, or watching F1 if you can't say these are the fastest, most technical, most innovated cars in the world!

Quote from scania :

If they make it to a real think, a quick relase wire is not a hard technic

I don't think the problem is releasing the canopy. It's the problem of driver extraction if the car is upside-down. How would the driver move the canopy out of the way after release, especially if the weight of the car is resting on the canopy?

Quote from samjh :

I don't think the problem is releasing the canopy. It's the problem of driver extraction if the car is upside-down. How would the driver move the canopy out of the way after release, especially if the weight of the car is resting on the canopy?

we have roll cage
the "release" what I mean is totaly break away from the car

if the pressure are on the canopy directly, that means it will on drivers' head if there are no canopy. easy to take a dead body out, and hard to leave the car life, which is better?

Quote from boothy :

Just so you can get away from being a stereotypical stupid yank, here's some links for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L ... rmula_One_fatal_accidents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NASCAR_fatal_accidents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C ... _of_motorsport_fatalities

And there's always http://www.motorsportmemorial.org/...

Yeah, after I was told that I had over assumed I'd visited those pages. I would point out that the NASCAR page includes ALL of the major divisions of NASCAR. NASCAR has many divisions of racing (regional IE: Mexico, Busch North, Busch South, ECT.) and at least 1 minor division of national racing (Modified Series) in which all of the saftey features incorperated into the Top 3 series's which I refered to in my post (which have full saftey features due to proper team funding through out the series) are not incorperated.

My NASCAR I knew (Since '01 in the 3 major series's as I said), but F1 I was not educated about. I simply assumed things based on the hype of this topic and saftey... The American Series of Open Wheel racing (IRL) doesn't see this as an issue, so as you can see.. Americans don't exactly care as much about saftey.. or worry about it as much I guess.. But I know that here if something got this much attention there would have to be fatalities involving debris stricking drivers to even have it talked about really.

As I said before.. I had assumed incorrectly.

Yanks aren't generally stupid though.. Just uninformed due to their lack of care. I was careless in that instance..

Quote from scania :

we have roll cage
the "release" what I mean is totaly break away from the car

if the pressure are on the canopy directly, that means it will on drivers' head if there are no canopy. easy to take a dead body out, and hard to leave the car life, which is better?

the point is how do you do to close and lock your canopy? I think you didn't understand the problem. The problem that FIA pointed is that in case of crash (and bad luck) some object like wheels (Henri Surtees' son), pushrod (Ayrton Senna), springs (Felipe Masse)... can hurt the driver. So by the way the problem isn't when the car is upside down because this isn't canopy mission to protect driver in that case but it is the mission of the rollcage.

The problem with the canopy is how to extract a driver quickly from it, in case of fire for example. So the huge problem is to build some fast but hard locking system (and add lot of stuff due to closed cockpit like air conditioning,...

This canopy have in fact nothing in common with a closed LMP cockpit that is the rollcage too, here this is kind of "nothing into the head of driver system".

Quote from MoMo92i :

The problem with the canopy is how to extract a driver quickly from it, in case of fire for example.

Ferrari actually has a solution for it:
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/200 ... dge-that-fell-on-a-track/

close wheel & close cockpit

you forgot the DRS system :

http://up.autotitre.com/forum/up/9b95fe8991.jpg

that is not closed cockpit.

Slap a cockpit on a F1 car and you may as well enter it in Lemans.

Quote from AstroBoy :

Slap a cockpit on a F1 car and you may as well enter it in Lemans.

or fly it

Quote from TFalke55 :

I hear the commentator line in my inner ear: Oh, wow, that feature just saved the life of the driver! Wait a second? Why did panic broke loose in the stands? Oh my god! The tyre just hit the spectators! -.- Or in other words: Let's make a modern LeMans '55!

If anyone remembers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qc0ZubuW18

Frentzens tire hit and killed a marshal. Shortly after tethers were introduced if i remember correctly.