How the 'single biggest' motorsport safety step was made

Bob Hubbard should be rightly remembered for the huge contribution he made to safety in motorsport. Particularly as the 25th anniversary of the dark weekend that was the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix approaches.

Along with his business partner and pioneering HANS user Jim Downing, American professor Hubbard worked for years to get the device accepted, often in the face of scepticism and open hostility.

Sadly, it would take a series of high-profile fatal accidents in major categories to accelerate its adoption, to the point where it is now as commonplace in motorsport as seat belts and helmets. Many owe their lives to Hubbard's persistence.

"It's saved countless drivers from serious injury or death," says the FIA's Charlie Whiting. "It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that."

Hubbard was the right man for the job. He had a strong background in road safety research, both in the academic world and at General Motors, where in the 1970s he helped to develop the Hybrid III crash test dummy that would become standard industry equipment. His PhD explored the mechanical properties of skull bone.

At weekends he helped the pit crew of Downing, a well known SCCA and IMSA racer (and Hubbard's brother-in-law). It was the death of Downing's friend Patrick Jacquemart in a testing accident at Mid-Ohio in July 1981 that spurred both men into action.

It was evident that too many drivers were dying from basilar skull fractures as their heads were thrown forward in head-on impacts. So while continuing his day job as a university professor, Hubbard conducted early experiments and filed some patents. Downing raced with what the pair called a Head and Neck Support device for the first time during an IMSA event at Daytona in November 1986. The ungainly prototype quickly earned the uncomplimentary "Darth Vader" nickname.

"We were going into the unknown," Hubbard (above) would later recall. "There wasn't any good knowledge of racing crashes back when we started back in the early 1980s - no systematic record keeping and no real analysis of driver injuries and deaths in racing. It was a whole new world.

"I had studied human injury biomechanics and I knew what happens to humans when they get hurt. I also knew crashes were not predictable, that there was a huge diversity when it comes to how people get hurt and the medical consequences. I knew a lot about the world we were entering, and it was sobering."

In 1988, Paul Newman became the second driver to wear a HANS prototype during a race. Development then stepped up a gear with pioneering sled testing at Michigan's Wayne State University, and, together with later work backed by General Motors, that helped Hubbard to compile formal research papers to demonstrate the worth of his ideas.

When no established safety company was interested in producing the HANS, Hubbard and Downing set up on their own, helped by some modest start-up funding from the state of Michigan. They began selling the HANS in 1991 - but in those early days, when it was custom made and cost up to $5000, there were few takers.

Mika Hakkinen's crash at the Australian GP in November 1995 provided further impetus for the FIA to pursue the HANS

It took the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at Imola, and the other crashes that blighted the 1994 Formula 1 season, to move things on.

Searching for answers, the FIA President Max Mosley formed the Expert Advisory Group to explore safety issues. Chaired by Professor Sid Watkins, its members included Whiting, engineers Harvey Postlethwaite and Peter Wright, and Gerhard Berger, while McLaren donated a chassis for testing. The HANS caught the group's attention at an early stage.

"When the representatives from the FIA came over after Ayrton Senna's crash to visit us at General Motors, the technical results of the testing on the HANS Device were impressive," Hubbard said of the initial contact.

"But I think complementary to that, we had over 200 drivers using the HANS at the time and none of them had been injured in a way the HANS was designed to help prevent. So, the credibility that came from drivers using the HANS was a big deal."

Mika Hakkinen's crash at the Australian GP in November 1995 provided further impetus for the FIA to pursue the HANS.

"It was something that we looked at quite early on," says Whiting. "We used a high-G sled at MIRA [the Motor Industry Research Association] to test various things, most important of which was the higher cockpit sides, that's what we concentrated on first. During that research, we did try the HANS for the first time."

Meanwhile, Wright thought it prudent to reach out to other organisations involved in motorsport to see what other resources could be brought in.

"I happened to be sent by the FIA to Hockenheim to investigate the movable ballast system on the Mercedes DTM car," he recalls

"While there I said, 'If the FIA approached Mercedes, would they be prepared to get involved with safety research?' They came back and said, 'Yes, if your president contacts our head of R&D, we will probably help'."

Leading Stuttgart engineer Hubert Gramling was subsequently seconded to lead the R&D work.

"The initial programme was for an airbag system," says Wright. "With Hakkinen's accident we thought 'we can't deal with that with a headrest, we need an airbag' - a removable headrest, as it were.

"We looked at a lot of other things, and one of the things that came up was the HANS, which of course was for an upright seating system. So, Mercedes started a programme to look at the HANS and airbags, and developed both to the point where they could show that both of them worked, and offered a degree of protection.

"The early HANS was made out of aluminium and [was] riveted; it was a clunky structure, big and cumbersome, since it was developed in sportscars and used quite extensively in powerboats. But it showed the principle was right.

"The decision was made quite early on to go after the HANS, because the airbag was a bit complicated. It involved explosives in the cockpit, and it was a one-shot system. If you had a second impact, you were in trouble. Hubert did a very thorough programme, working with Bob Hubbard and Jim Downing, making sure it was safe under all circumstances.

As he moved around the garage area servicing his customers at the 2001 Daytona 500, Hubbard was frustrated by the resistance he faced, especially from veteran competitors

"Bob was the man who had developed the head and shoulders of the Hybrid III, the dummy that did all the early work on airbags at GM. His knowledge of that dummy, and the human side of the shoulders, is really what the HANS is all about."

Berger had tested an early version of the HANS on track in 1995-1996, but it clearly wasn't yet ready for use in F1. Gramling's major contribution was to help to develop a much sleeker design.

"Hubert impressed us a lot," says Whiting. "He took the HANS a bit further, he realised it needed a bit of honing. He discussed it a lot with Bob and Jim, and we went over there a few times, to various seminars and gatherings in the US, and worked with them to try to perfect it.

"[At the time], it came in one size fits all, one angle, and it was never designed for a reclined seating position. And it had to be adapted to make it look like an F1 device. Hubert did a lot of work like that, and it was finally homologated."

A key moment came at the 2000 San Marino GP, six years after the Senna/Ratzenberger accidents. That weekend Mosley - accompanied by Mercedes boss Jurgen Huppert - officially unveiled the latest HANS spec.

"We're going to give one to each team to use this season in testing," Mosley noted at the time. "And the intention is, unless there is an unforeseen problem, to bring the system in as compulsory from 2001."

Development had continued in parallel in the USA. Newman/Haas drivers Michael Andretti and Christian Fittipaldi were early adopters in CART, supported by medical experts Terry Trammell and Steve Olvey. The deaths of Gonzalo Rodriguez and Greg Moore in 1999 helped to accelerate the compulsory use of HANS in that series.

In 2000, the focus turned to NASCAR after a dreadful run of fatal accidents had claimed the lives of Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin and Tony Roper. Encouraged by the car companies, who subsidised the devices, several NASCAR drivers tried the HANS during the build-up to the '01 Daytona 500.

But as he moved around the garage area servicing his customers at that race, Hubbard was frustrated by the resistance he faced, especially from veteran competitors.

The race would change all that. Dale Earnhardt's fatal crash on the final lap, in which he suffered a basilar skull fracture, would prove to be a turning point. After suppling some 250 devices in the decade up to that point, Hubbard and Downing sold 250 in the week after Daytona - and by the end of that year the total had reached 3000. Although their faith in the product was vindicated, they took little pleasure from the tragic turn of events.

The HANS was soon standard equipment and, crucially in an industry dominated by data, Hubbard could provide sanctioning bodies with solid results from the years of research.

"I hoped the papers would provide credibility to technical decision makers later on," he recalled. "When CART was casting about after Gonzalo Rodriguez and Greg Moore were killed, and when NASCAR finally needed to do something, the fact we had presented these highly credible technical papers was the basis for them feeling confident that a head and neck restraint was the right thing to do. The medical people respected the technical papers, too."

The FIA didn't meet Mosley's original deadline of 2001 for compulsory introduction of the device into F1, mainly because the homologation process and legal technicalities proved to be complex.

"We couldn't just let them corner the market like that," says Whiting. "We had to come up with the right standard, which anyone could comply with. That's the problem with our business, we can't just say, 'Chaps, off you go and get this.' We couldn't say you've got to use a Bell helmet, for example."

"The one that really seemed to crack HANS usage in F1 was Alonso's in Brazil. That's because he said he really felt it working" Peter Wright

"What Max wouldn't do was mandate something for which there was a monopoly," adds Wright. "There was a Mercedes-Hubbard-Downing patent, and Max said that's got to be licensed. The HANS is a very cunning device, and the bits that make it so good are patented. So, it was protected.

"We knew that it was going to be quite difficult to get it into F1 anyway, so we said 'let CART push ahead with it' - they put it in first - and [thought] 'we'll learn a phenomenal amount from them - if we haven't got all the licensing sorted out, let's pause for a year, and let CART do some beta work.'"

By 2003, the FIA was finally ready to make the HANS mandatory in F1, and Stand 21 and Schroth were licensed to produce their own versions in Europe. Some drivers found it uncomfortable in testing, and Rubens Barrichello was particularly vocal after the opening race in Melbourne.

"It met with quite a lot of resistance from drivers," says Whiting. "A few of them grizzled, some of them just got on with it. I remember Sid gave Rubens a dispensation in Malaysia, the second race of that year. I don't think Max was very happy about it, and I think with the benefit of hindsight Sid thought it wasn't a very good idea after all."

The first real test of the HANS in F1 came almost immediately in the third race of the 2003 season at Interlagos, when Fernando Alonso crashed into debris from Mark Webber's earlier accident as he made his way onto the pit straight. Having experienced separate impacts of 35G and 60G, Alonso made it clear that the device had made a difference.

"The one that really seemed to crack it was Alonso's," says Wright. "That's because he said he really felt it working."

The following year, Felipe Massa suffered a huge head-on impact with a tyre wall at the Montreal hairpin. By now it was clear that the HANS was already saving lives in F1.

"Once they were made aware of the benefits it was just a matter of getting used to it," says Whiting. "It's like the halo, and how the drivers sit lower and lower in the cars these days."

Mandatory HANS usage soon spread to other categories, and as sales went up and new manufacturing techniques were developed, the unit price came down. Hubbard eventually sold his shares to Downing, who in turn sold the company to parts supplier Simpson, although both remained involved as consultants.

Sadly, in recent years Hubbard had been struggling with Parkinson's disease, and he passed away on February 5 at the age of 75.

"He was a lovely guy, a really nice man, very smart, academic based," says Wright. "He was somebody we talked to a lot over the following years, because he gave such good advice."

So how should we view Hubbard (below, right, at the 2007 Autosport Awards with Downing) and the HANS and their combined contribution to motorsport safety? Wright has no doubts.

"At the end of the day we're trying to protect the driver's head and neck from an impact from any direction," he says. "From the sides and the back we do it with a headrest, or the ears on a sportscar or rally car seat.

"But you've got this section which is 30-40 degrees either side of straight-ahead where you can't put protective structure. The HANS deals with that, and is good to 70G. And you don't get basilar skull fractures now. It's the single biggest thing we've done in the past 25 years."