STAYING ALIVE
STAYING ALIVE
STRAW BALES AND CLOTH CAPS
Our civilization’s attitude to managing risk has altered dramatically over the past century. The first motor races were held on public roads that weren’t even closed to other traffic for the occasion. A series of unconnected accidents on the 1903 Paris-Madrid road race put paid to that, but even after motor racing became better organized, safety standards were still lax.
Part of this can be put down to lack of relevant technology, but much of it was cultural, this being an era when it was still possible for tobacco companies to advertise the health benefits of smoking, for instance. When the Formula 1 World Championship began in 1950, racing drivers wore simple overalls while on the job—flame-retardant fabrics lay in the future—and crash helmets were a mildly controversial topic. Some drivers continued to use cloth caps, like those worn by fighter pilots, rather than helmets; until 1952 there was no obligation to wear head protection (not that the cork-lined tin hats of the day would have offered much).
“When I started, my father wanted me to wear a helmet,” says Stirling Moss. “I said, ‘But, Dad, that’s a bit sissy.’”
Mislaid machismo would get in the way of safety development for the next two decades. Race promoters also had a vested interest in minimal safety provisions at racetracks because improved standards came at a cost, and few people were asking for them, anyway. It was easy and cheap to place bales of straw around track boundaries to absorb hits from cars and drivers; unlike today, there was no requirement for vehicle bodies to deform progressively in impacts, and drivers didn’t wear seat belts. In fact, it was considered better to be thrown out of a car during an accident than to be trapped in it afterward if it caught fire.
STAYING ALIVE
FIGHTING FIRES
Drivers who showed little fear of injury or death in an accident still dreaded one thing in particular: fire. Here death would not be instant, but painful and lingering. Most drivers of the 1950s and 1960s cited the possibility of becoming trapped in a car that had caught fire as a very good reason to avoid wearing a seat belt.
Cars in this era were little more than bombs on wheels, often built with exotic, lightweight metals such as magnesium (which gives off intense heat when it burns) and carrying unprotected fuel tanks stuffed with high-octane juice. In an accident, spilled fuel was likely, with inevitable consequences when it came into contact with a heat source or spark. A crashed car might come to rest against one of the straw bales that marked the outer edges of circuits of the day, barriers that were highly flammable when dry.
Until the 1970s, firefighting equipment was sparsely deployed around race circuits, and often left in the hands of untrained volunteers rather than professional firefighters. The results were predictably catastrophic. When Lorenzo Bandini crashed at the chicane on the Monaco harbor front in 1967, his Ferrari came to rest upside down on top of straw bales. He was trapped inside as a broken fuel pipe created an inferno that the marshals nearby, with inadequate fire extinguishers and no fireproof clothing, struggled to extinguish. A TV helicopter hovering above fanned the flames. Bandini died three days later.
Very little changed in the aftermath. A year later, Jo Schlesser was killed when his magnesium-bodied Honda crashed and burst into flames at Rouen, France. Again, the water-based fire-extinguishing equipment wasn’t up to the task: the burning remnants of the car floated on the water, creating rivers of fire.
STAYING ALIVE
STEWART STANDS UP
One driver can take most of the credit for starting a revolution in Formula 1 safety: Jackie Stewart. His campaign to improve standards brought him into direct conflict not only with race promoters and other vested interests, but also with so-called experts and even his own colleagues.
Over nine seasons in F1, he won the World Championship three times. Even before he won his first in 1969, though, he was beginning to agitate for better driver welfare. The trigger came in 1966, when eight of the fifteen drivers who started the Belgian Grand Prix—Stewart among them—crashed on the opening lap when a sudden downpour soaked the track surface.
Stewart was travelling at upwards of 160 miles per hour as he speared off the track, into a telephone pole. Two other drivers stopped and had to borrow a toolkit from a spectator to remove Stewart’s steering wheel and free him from the cockpit. He regained consciousness on the floor of what he later referred to as “the so-called medical center.” It was dirty and strewn with cigarette butts. His ambulance then got lost on the way to the hospital.
After recovering, Stewart began bringing his own doctor to race weekends—an innovation that attracted much ridicule. Mirth turned to anger in some quarters as Stewart pushed on, demanding that circuits install proper safety barriers and better runoff areas, and that seat belts and full-face crash helmets become compulsory.
With the help of some key allies in the driving fraternity, Stewart even managed to arrange boycotts of some circuits against entrenched opposition from within the sport. Slowly, he managed to engineer a change in racing’s culture: no longer would injury or death be considered acceptable risk.
STAYING ALIVE
DOCTORS IN THE HOUSE
The catalyst for the next big change in Formula 1 safety was an accident at the beginning of the 1978 Italian Grand Prix that claimed the life of Lotus driver Ronnie Peterson. In spite of the improvements happening elsewhere, medical facilities and coverage at circuits remained primitive. (Before his retirement in 1973, Jackie Stewart had complained that the on-site doctor at one track was a gynecologist rather than one with a relevant qualification.)
This was already changing when Peterson met his unfortunate end. Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, a man increasingly involved in the running of the sport and pushing for more influence, had invited a qualified neurosurgeon to consult on possible improvements. Professor Sid Watkins duly found himself in the thick of it at Monza, where there was no car to get him to the scene of Peterson’s accident, and—after he’d made his way there on foot—he was turned away by police. The semi-conscious Peterson had to be lifted through the chaotic rabble to a helicopter because there was no ambulance. He died later in the hospital.
In the late 1970s, Ecclestone was in the process of, in effect, unionizing the teams with himself at the head. In the teeth of opposition from vested interests who saw no value in spending money on better medical care, he empowered Watkins to push for—and receive—a minimum standard for on-site medical centers, qualified doctors, and a medical evacuation helicopter for every race. Just as significantly, he pioneered the idea of the medical car—not an ambulance, but a high-powered road car driven by a skilled ex-racer and carrying emergency stabilization equipment, along with a doctor. For many years, this was Watkins, the neurosurgeon.
Today, the medical car is a Mercedes-AMG C 63 S. It follows the field around for the first lap of the race so that it can arrive at an accident site within seconds.
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DEATH AT IMOLA
If ever there were such a thing as a cursed weekend, the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix aptly fits that description. Five serious incidents, two of which resulted in fatalities, would have grabbed the world’s attention—even if one of those tragic deaths had not been Ayrton Senna, one of the greatest drivers of all time. The loss of Senna almost brought the sport to its knees.
The weekend began with a frightening accident during Friday practice in which Senna’s countryman, Rubens Barrichello, narrowly escaped serious injury after his car launched off a curb at high speed and almost vaulted the barriers into a spectator enclosure. If anything, though, this incident served to magnify the complacency that had been growing within F1: Barrichello’s survival was taken as evidence of the reassuring strength of modern cars.
The following day, Austrian Roland Ratzenberger was killed when his front wing came loose, also at high speed, and lodged under his car. Unable to brake or steer effectively, he slammed into a concrete wall.
This incident affected Senna deeply. Professor Sid Watkins wrote in his autobiography that Senna cried on his shoulder, but refused to quit the sport, saying, “Sid, there are certain things over which we have no control. I cannot quit—I have to go on.”
Senna had been riled by suspicions that Michael Schumacher’s Benetton team had been using illegal traction control systems and was determined to beat them. He started the race from pole position and took the lead, but the race had to be neutralized briefly behind the safety car because of another accident. After the race restarted, Senna tore off into the lead again, but one lap later his car left the road at the Tamburello corner, barely slowing from 190 miles per hour as it ran over the grass and into a wall.
The race continued as Senna was airlifted to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Later, four mechanics were injured in the pit lane by a loose wheel. F1’s complacency had been shattered.
STAYING ALIVE
RETHINKING CAR DESIGN
The events of the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix prompted a far-reaching rethink by motor racing’s governing body, the FIA. There were a number of short-term solutions put in place so that F1 could continue, such as the installation of temporary chicanes at some circuits during 1994 to reduce speeds in potential danger spots.
Looking forward, the FIA resolved to demand that circuits install bigger runoff areas and more impact-absorbent barriers, along with better catch fencing to protect spectators (several people had suffered minor injuries when debris from the starting line accident at Imola went into a spectator enclosure). Another key focus was on car design, aiming to reduce top speeds and to give drivers better protection in an accident.
The precise cause of Senna’s death was put down to a broken suspension wishbone penetrating his crash helmet. Barrichello had broken his nose in his accident, and his head had slammed against the side of the cockpit. At the subsequent Monaco Grand Prix, another driver, Karl Wendlinger, also suffered head injuries in a side-on impact with a crash barrier.
Over the following seasons, the FIA rolled out new crash-testing regulations that required the chassis “tub” to act as a safety cell for drivers. It mandated that the cockpit sides around the head area be higher, made from a deformable padding, and easily removable for quicker driver extraction in case of accidents. In later years, the HANS device (see this chapter’s glossary) became mandatory.
Engine sizes were cut—from 3.5-liter V-10s to 3.0 in 1995, then to 2.4 V-8s in 2006. Wheel tethers became compulsory to prevent them becoming detached in an accident, and “unsafe release” penalties were added to the rules governing pit lane activities.
The outside of the cars changed, too, owing to new regulations limiting wing sizes and other bodywork dimensions. From 1998, the tires had to feature grooves to reduce their surface area, but this proved a step too far: “slicks” returned in 2009.
STAYING ALIVE
MODERN SAFETY GEAR
Rapid advances in fabric technology over the past half century have transformed the look, feel, and effectiveness of safety gear. Fire-retardant driver overalls were compulsory from 1963, but, unlike other measures such as seat belts and helmets, these were more rapidly embraced by drivers, given their aversion to fire.
Still, early fabrics weren’t as effective as they could have been, especially in single-layer clothing. In 1975, the FIA defined a minimum standard for fireproof clothing; this, together with the adoption of properly resilient materials such as Nomex, finally banished the placebo effect.
The multilayer suits of the day were heavy, though, and since the 1970s race suit manufacturers have concentrated on reducing bulk and weight while continuing to improve fire resistance. Pit crews, having been allowed to work in shorts and T-shirts up until the 1980s, must now operate in the same gear as the drivers.
The cockpit is a much safer environment than it was, thanks to the adoption of the HANS head restraint to complement the body harnesses. Seat belts were only made mandatory in 1972, and in the modern era are governed by specific rules: they’re now six-point harnesses with a single “catch” at the center, enabling the driver to undo it with a single hand movement.
Above the driver’s head, the roll cage has to meet impact requirements every bit as strict as those governing frontal, rear, and side impacts. The seat is designed to be removable, and the cockpit sides are reinforced with bulletproof Zylon material.
Although drivers are safer than ever before, it’s impossible to neutralize all risks. Work is presently under way on a new form of cockpit protection to shield drivers’ heads from flying objects, but the exact form of this has yet to be determined.
GLOSSARY
ARMCO
A type of crash barrier made from curved metal sheets attached to posts, the Armco functions like a fence. The idea is to absorb or deflect impacts more progressively than other roadside furniture, such as trees.
CATCH FENCING
Abandoned during the 1970s, catch fencing was designed to act as a safety net, progressively slowing cars down if they left the track. In practice it proved indifferently effective and often trapped cars and drivers.
GPDA
Reformed in the aftermath of Ayrton Senna’s death in 1994 following a long hiatus, the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association was originally formed in 1961 to represent the interests of drivers. At first, it was a fairly passive organization, later energized by Jackie Stewart as a force for change on safety matters during the 1970s.
HALO
Throughout 2016 this new cockpit-protection device was tested during Grand Prix practice sessions. Opinions differed as to its effectiveness and its effects on forward vision.
HANS
The head and neck support device was pioneered in America in the 1980s. Essentially a carbon-fiber frame that rests on the driver’s pectoral area and attaches to the crash helmet, it reduces whiplash during impacts. It has been mandatory in F1 since 2003.
RUNOFF AREAS
Introduced as a buffer area in which cars can slow down before they hit anything if they leave the track, a runoff area can take the form of gravel beds or high-grip asphalt. The latter is considered preferable, since cars can become stuck in gravel.
SAFER BARRIER
Steel and foam energy reduction barriers are a more effective solution to trackside safety than Armco, and were first used in oval racing in America. A combination of steel and polystyrene, they deform progressively in impacts.
SAFETY CAR
If a race has to be neutralized because of an incident, the safety car leads the field around at a set pace until the situation has been resolved. Drivers may not overtake one another while running behind it.
UNSAFE RELEASE
Teams that release their car into the path of another in the pit lane, or who fail to attach all the wheels properly during a pit stop, are punished harshly.
VIRTUAL SAFETY CAR
For minor incidents or if action has to be taken quickly, rather than scrambling the safety car, the race director can declare “virtual” safety car conditions. Drivers cannot overtake one another and must stick to an electronically monitored speed limit.
YELLOW FLAGS
Waved by trackside marshals (and displayed to drivers via illuminated signs) to signify danger ahead, a yellow flag indicates that drivers must slow down and not overtake until they pass a green flag, indicating the danger is over.