How F1 is going head-first on safety

Since its inaugural world championship season in 1950, the appearance of Formula 1's cars has changed radically. The early machines looked like cigar tubes on four wheels, with front-mounted engines driving rear wheels in Systeme Panhard fashion - named so after the layout first used by the now-defunct automobile manufacturer over 50 years earlier.

For most of F1's first decade the cars changed little, save for adopting a more streamlined look. But a major overhaul came at the end of the 1950s when father and son combination Charles and John Cooper introduced mid-engined cars and initiated a significant change of appearance that such a layout dictated.

F1 car design has progressed a lot since this Maserati 4CLT was competitive © LAT

Ten years later came wings and spoilers, followed swiftly by airboxes. Ground effect sidepods followed in the '80s, giving cars a plump appearance, while tyres progressively grew fatter - the number of wheels even rose to six in the case of Tyrrell's P34.

Liveries changed too. Where once Italy's entries were scarlet, French cars blue and Germany's representatives named Silver Arrows for obvious reasons, John Love and Team Gunston introduced tobacco sponsorship in 1968, changing the face of F1 forever.

F1 evolved as its designers strived to find the ideal balance between downforce and drag; the ultimate compromise between straightline speed and grip. Take today's passenger car and place it next to a '50s family saloon, and the connection is clear; but compare Alberto Ascari's 1950 Ferrari with Fernando Alonso's F2010, and the phrase 'chalk and cheese' springs to mind, even if the latter is now a lot narrower and appears more upright than some of more recent predecessors.

However, apart from their Cavallino Rampante logos, the 1950 and 2010 editions have two further common denominators, namely that both have four wheels (now a regulatory requirement) and open cockpits, with the heads of each car's drivers exposed (albeit from the shoulders up in the earlier car).

But now even that could change if the FIA Institute's experiments with cockpit canopies bear fruit.

It has long been known - since August 2009, when Felipe Massa was hit by a wayward spring in Hungary, in fact - that the Institute was investigating ways of eliminating head injuries caused by flying objects, with its IQ online magazine carrying updates from time to time.

During the last F1 Technical Working Group meeting the Institute's technical consultant Andy Mellor made a full presentation to the technical directors present, and at Monza during the drivers' briefing the racers were given a run-down on progress made.

"The main thing is generally to look at safety in F1, and some of the accidents recently do maybe require something like that," says Williams technical director Sam Michael.

"It's something we're analysing in the TWG at the moment, taking very seriously. That is part of the reason for Andy Mellor from the FIA Institute to give the presentation to the drivers; to tell them what we're up to."

Neither Michael nor Barrichello gave much away about canopies © sutton-images.com

Michael provided various examples of recent accidents where cockpit protection was found wanting, including the accident in which Alex Wurz's Williams rode over David Coulthard's head at Melbourne in 2007, the Michael Schumacher/Vitantonio Liuzzi incident at Yas Marina last year, the Massa spring incident and the death of Henry Surtees, the son of 1964 world champion John, killed when he bore the full brunt of a flying wheel during an F2 race at Brands Hatch in 2009.

"We've had four or five examples of things where we have had close calls, plus, unfortunately in the case of Henry Surtees it was not a close call. That is why the FIA is taking it very seriously, and [assessing] what can be done," he adds.

Michael disclosed that various studies had been undertaken with the manufacturer of canopies used for fighter jets and in aerospace applications, but that no final decision had been taken. "The final form of what that takes has yet to be decided, it's still to be decided in the TWG," he says.

There are, of course, many challenges facing the project, not least developing a transparent fireproof material with the necessary resistance qualities; one that provides perfect vision in all weather conditions, does not deflect like a trampoline when hit by objects (sources advise that during early experiments a flying wheel shot off a canopy with around 50 per cent more than its original energy, with obvious safety implications); and will not cause lacerations under impact or shatter unduly.

"Honestly, I cannot talk about it, it was a very private thing. It was a presentation on the canopy and also some devices for the visor," said Williams driver and Grand Prix Drivers' Association chairman Rubens Barrichello in Italy. "We, as the GPDA, are very happy that the FIA is taking more into it, to give us the best options possible for safety. All we ask as the GPDA is to be more part of it."

Then there is the fan issue. A recent survey showed that almost 80 per cent of fans are against the idea of canopies in F1 and believe that the sport should at all times be one of the open wheeled and cockpit variety. Drivers, too, are apprehensive. Not only do they have evacuation concerns, but some also have claustrophobia concerns, while there are further suggestions that drivers will be even more 'separated' from their fans through being shielded behind a bubble. After all, one of the key attractions of the cars of yore was seeing their drivers hard at work.

Petrov's black zylon strip is clearly visible behind his visor sticker © LAT

"I honestly don't have a firm opinion on it, I will wait to see what they say. We cannot be naive and say it looks ugly, we cannot say that, we have made Formula 1 safer, much safer, and we must continue," responded Barrichello when the question of aesthetics and 'separation' was put to him.

The visor device referred to is a zylon shield fitted to the top of the visor to shield drivers at their helmets' most vulnerable point: where visor and helmet meet - precisely the point at which the spring penetrated Massa's helmet, causing serious head injuries.

At Monza, Stephane Cohen, chairman of helmet manufacturer Bell Racing - who also holds direct responsibility for the company's research and development - spoke exclusively to this column about the device, known as a visor panel.

"It's a part that was developed by the FIA Institute, mainly after Felipe Massa's accident two years ago, with the aim of reinforcing the higher part of the shield of all Formula 1 helmets against penetration by flying objects," he says.

"What it does is it adds a few layers of a special aramid fabric, which is used for example in bulletproof vests. It's the same fabric used in the sides of the cockpit of the chassis to prevent perforation and piercing."

The main constituent is known as zylon - also used in the wheel tethering ropes mandated by F1 - which in turn is sandwiched by two layers of carbonfibre due to zylon's sensitivity to ultra-violet light, then attached to visors via special double-sided adhesive to extend above the point where the visor and helmet meet at the forehead point.

"There is a core of foam and on each side of the core a special adhesive," explains Cohen. "And we choose this solution because it doesn't change anything in terms of performances, but allows us to replace and re-fit the part from one shield to another."

Weighing about 60g, overlapping the top 25mm of the visor itself and extending 25mm over the edge of the helmet's visor opening - dimensions that ensure extra protection without impairing driver vision and without adding undue weight - it occupies the area known as a dialogue strip: the sponsor banner at the top of the visor. No downsides at all then, only a safety increase, and for a cost of just £250 too.

Massa's crash was the catalyst for more research on head protection © LAT

Writing in the FIA Insitute's quarterly online newsletter IQ, Mellor explained that the zylon sandwich, rather than straight carbonfibre, had been used as the former differs subtly from the carbonfibre used elsewhere in helmet shells: "In tests we found zylon was better than carbonfibre for this application as it offers better energy-absorbing qualities," he says.

It is anticipated that the use of the device will be enforced from the Japanese Grand Prix onwards, although it is alleged that one supplier of certified F1 helmets was unable to incorporate the panel in its present designs, making mandatory use impossible until rectified. Bell says all eight of its contracted drivers have raced with visor panels this year, and according to Cohen it improves resistance up to tenfold, although the number varies according to the area of penetration.

"The lower you go on the shield, the greater the resistance," he explains. "You have a small area where the shield overlaps the shell. Usually if an object pierces the shield in the small area where the shield overlaps the shell, it would deflect into the helmet. As soon as you're close to the edge of the shell and go down, the difference is absolutely huge. It's very difficult to quantify, but it's at least double the energy. In some cases it can be 10 times, in some cases it can be two-and-a-half times."

Still the Institute's work is not done, for this week news arrived of a crash sled, known as the Formula 1 Accident Reconstruction Facility. Designed to recreate the forces involved in major impacts to measure their effect on drivers, the rig simulates impacts of up to 100G, or the equivalent of decelerating from 60mph to a standstill in 0.1 seconds - a sizeable impact and about five times the force experienced by Mark Webber when he and his Red Bull spectacularly flew into the barriers at Valencia last year.

The base chassis used in the rig was donated, appropriately enough, by Red Bull, and can be mounted in the sled at any required angle to replicate front, side, or rear impacts, enabling researchers to quantify safety systems and monitor developments.

"When there's an accident of particular interest, the FIA Institute can put a dummy in the chassis, reconstruct the crash 'pulse' from the accident, then measure the dummy loads to see how the whole system works," says Mellor. "We can see exactly how things like the headrest, belts, HANS device and other systems all contribute to the safety of the driver."

The facility has also tested other safety devices and materials. Last May it studied the merits of using seat foam in single-seaters as a means of absorbing shocks to the driver when landing after airborne incidents. Bearing in mind Webber's Valencia crash or Vitaly Petrov's Malaysian GP accident this year, it was an appropriate topic for research. What works in one crash scenario, however, can not necessarily be applied in another, with such absorption possibly leading to higher chest acceleration, thereby impacting on spinal bending modes.

All of which proves that evolution in F1 has not been restricted to cars alone, but to safety too.