Safety improvements are no quick fix

Tragedy inevitably breeds introspection, and Justin Wilson's accident at Pocono last month has once again forced motorsport to ask some hard questions of itself.

And for all of the op-eds and columns and click-bait that have been thrown into the conversation by those outside of racing, these ultimately are motorsport's questions to answer.

Few outside the sport have the depth of understanding required to make a meaningful contribution: if the solutions - a canopy, a deflector screen, whatever - were as obvious as they're sometimes made to sound, the problem wouldn't exist in the first place.

There's another reason why motorsport is best-placed to lead the way on this, and it's one that has apparently been lost on everybody who has called for an immediate solution: it has already done a lot of the groundwork.

Research into the issue of cockpit protection had been well underway on both sides of the Atlantic long before Wilson was strapped into his car at Pocono.

It's true that certain catastrophic accidents have been the impetus for safety improvements. Historically, they've probably driven more change than any other factor. But Wilson's wasn't one of them.

The FIA has been researching the viability of full-cover canopies for years - you might have seen the photos and video that circulated a while ago of a jet-fighter canopy deflecting when a racing wheel, complete with tyre, was fired at it.

The FIA had already been testing possible canopy solutions

The bit you probably didn't see is where that wheel ended up, which, by some accounts, was roughly a mile away.

In order to be deployed in racing, a canopy needs to have a certain amount of flex if it is to maintain the correct shape and offer the required protection.

That same flex, the FIA tests revealed, is also extraordinarily good at rebounding wheels vast distances at very high velocity. Used in a real-life situation, this would clearly be bad news for the spectators sitting in the grandstands.

Research into the same problem has been under way in the US for some time as well, in a kind of informal collaboration with the FIA efforts.

Data is shared two ways, and now-former IndyCar president of operations Derrick Walker told AUTOSPORT at Sonoma that the two groups decide on research paths together - each explores a different avenue and reports back, so as to avoid doubling-up on work.

That raft of columns presenting the novel idea that more needs to be done to protect drivers' heads exists in spite of the fact that work to that very end has been under way, in earnest, for years.

And even if a solution were found tomorrow, it would not be easy or quick to implement. Walker also told AUTOSPORT that it would not be viable to retrofit a canopy-type device to the current IndyCar. It would have to be incorporated into the initial design. And we're not likely to see a replacement for the Dallara DW12 before 2018 at the earliest.

The other part that many seem to have missed is this: a canopy/hoop/screen is still not infallible, and there are some accidents that will have dire consequences whether there's an extra layer of protection for the driver or not.

Canopy-style protection would have to be included in an initial car design © LAT

Details of Wilson's crash are still to be made public, but all the signs - the weight of the part that struck him, the area where he was struck, the velocity involved - point to an accident where the types of cockpit protection that we're talking about would not have made a difference. The only thing that would have changed the outcome is a car with a roof.

The circumstances that resulted in his death were so random, so freakish, as to be virtually unrepeatable. Nobody was to blame. He was just horribly, horribly unlucky.

None of this is to say that racing is doing all it can on all fronts to promote safety. I'd argue that it's not; at least, not in the US. There are still battles to be fought over the safety of some of the tracks themselves, for drivers and spectators alike.

It's a sad irony that Wilson - a long-time and energetic advocate for increasing safety standards across the board - had described his own ideas for enhancing spectator safety at ovals in a website column a few weeks before his death.

His idea was to move most of the grandstands to the infield, where a car, or large part thereof, is less likely to land in the event of a big accident. I agreed with his assessment of the problem, if not necessarily with his solution. One of the great things about being in the stands at an oval is that you can see so much of the track; move all the seats to the infield and all you're going to see is what's directly in front of you.

I'd liked to have had the chance to ask Wilson why he didn't think we could simply leave the stands where they are and tear out the first few rows, so that the spectators are higher up and further back. No doubt he'd have had an answer that I am too dumb to think of.

The fact that we'll never get to hear it is one of the many sad things about his loss. But if it's not really accurate to say that his death triggered an investigation into cockpit protection, he at least offers a reminder that we shouldn't have to wait for accidents to look for areas that can be improved.