Jonty's Corner

The Halo – Let’s Evaluate:Part Three

Time to do part three of this piece as it is long overdue and, in a perfect world, this will be the last; although that is extremely wishful think I suspect. If you’re keeping score from parts one and two we’re now up to six life changing or ending injuries being prevented, that is HUGE when you consider that overall, these are individuals involved and not massed numbers of people as you would see from safety innovations in other fields. As in part two, here are the ratings again for ease of reference.

GREEN –

Despite the visual appearance of danger to the driver, the driver was not in any danger of an injury and in these cases the halo has not been critical in preventing any such potential of the driver being hurt.

YELLOW –

There was a clear possibility of something making contact with the driver’s helmet, albeit small and/or light contact. It’s highly unlikely that any kind of injury would have resulted from it but in these instances the halo has ensured that any possibility – however small – has been eliminated.

AMBER –

The halo has definitely prevented a medium to large impact with the driver’s head. Potential severity of said impact is difficult to say and a life threatening/changing injury in these situations is somewhat unlikely, but the presence of the halo has made this a moot question – some degree of injury has absolutely been prevented.

RED –

The halo has prevented life ending or severely changing injury in this incident with no room for debate or question. Without the halo the very best possible outcome for these incidents is paralysis but the most likely result is death for the driver.

IndyCar – Callum Ilott – Texas 2022

During only the second race event of the 2022 season, IndyCar saw it’s aeroscreen put to the test once again. In practice Jack Harvey had a crash into the wall of Texas Motor Speedway spreading debris from his car across the track. Callum Ilott, not far behind on the circuit, thankfully had some time to react and was able to slow to 124mph before some of this debris struck his car. What wasn’t immediately apparent was how severe this could have been. In an interview later Ilott said “What’s amazing for me is I just came in and said ‘I think I hit something, can you check the car?’ Obviously I’d gone through a lot of debris.”

What Callum had hit, besides assorted small pieces of carbon fibre, was an entire pushrod, broken free from the suspension of Harvey’s car. This carries significantly more weight than just some pieces of broken wing or bodywork. After reaching out to Marshall Pruett, he directed me to Dallara who confirmed that pushrod are steel and weight 800grams each. That’s a very hard material to have hitting your body or helmet, just as Felipe Massa who was objectively extremely lucky to survive.

This carried enough energy to actually cause a hairline crack in the aeroscreen, considering that Illott had slowed significantly from well over 190mph to 124mph made a huge difference. What we have to think about though is what would have happened had the aeroscreen have not been there. It’s very clear to see from the onboard that the pushrod was on a direct course to strike his helmet, that alone is enough to qualify for a red rating, but what isn’t quite as clear (and requires using slowed down playback) is the movement of the debris as it approaches the car. The pushrod is rotating in the air as Ilott approaches it and this, combined with the height of it, means that I strongly believe that only the aeroscreen solution prevented death in this situation. If this had been the halo, as seen in F1 and all other single seat series with head protection devices, then I do not believe it would have been effective in injury prevention – in fact it may even have exacerbated the risk to life. The height and rotation suggests that the upper (as it lies) end of the pushrod would have been hit by the ring of the halo and deflected downwards into the chest of the driver.

Incident Rating – EXTRA RED – Only Aeroscreen, NOT Halo offered protection

F2 – Roy Nissany – Silverstone 2022

Formula 2’s feature race on Sunday of round seven at Silverstone gave a stark reminder of how incredibly dangerous incidents can be.

Whilst battling with Roy Nissany on the run down to Club after Stowe and Vale corners, Dennis Hauger is forced off the track after contact which pops his front right tyre off the rim. Now unable to steer or slow down Hauger crosses the track just after the apex and makes hard contact with the side of the car of Nissany. There is, however, an additional problem – sausage kerbs. I’ve already had plenty to say about sausage kerbs so I wont embark upon another rant about them here except to say that without the halo, a sausage kerb would have been directly responsible for the death of a Formula Two driver. No ‘ifs’, no ‘buts’, it’s a simple fact.

The out of control car of Dennis Hauger took flight from the sausage kerb on the inside of Club corner causing it to collide with the car of Roy Nissany in one of the worst possible ways. The leading, right side edge of the floor was precisely at visor level upon impact.

I think the images and video speak for themselves very clearly. Without the halo, Roy Nissany would be instantly killed. The circumstances leading to this collision are a result of his, admittedly common, dangerous driving antics but is death as a result of FIA incompetence a fair punishment for that? Absolutely not. Here we have to thank the halo again for being there and call out the FIA for borderline criminal negligence in allowing such a situation to arise.

Incident Rating – RED

F1 – Zhou Guanyu – Silverstone 2022

This is a situation I never thought, even for a second, would need any kind of examination but here we are. After strong wheel to wheel contact at the start of the 2022 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, the Alfa Romeo of Zhou Guanyu was violently launched and flipped over coming down hard on the roll hoop at speed. Not a massively uncommon occurrence in open wheel series but what is virtually unheard of is the roll hoop itself being almost instantly sheared clean off the car. (circled below)

The presence of the halo is now the only thing keeping the helmet of Zhou off the track. Clouds of sparks from the titanium construction emanating from it as the car slides at high speed towards the gravel. The forces which would have been exerted upon Zhou Guanyu’s neck without the halo are horrible to consider and I’m certain they would not have been survivable. Along with this there’s also the chance that, in the unlikely event that fatal or paralysing spinal injury isn’t suffered, the simple abrasion of the track surface at such speeds would have ground quickly through the helmet and begun upon his head. The outcomes of this incident for a car of a few years ago are just horrific. I wont get into the roll hoop failure issue here but I will address it later.

Incident Rating – RED

F1 – Sergio Perez – Silverstone 2022

We’re not done with Silverstone yet! Eventful weekend, I guess. After the red flag the race restarts on lap three and Charles Leclerc doesn’t have a good launch. Leclerc is racing very close with Sergio Perez and makes contact at turn four, damaging his front wing endplate. Sometime later this endplate breaks free and collides with the halo of Sergio Perez. Not much was made of this during the broadcast and I can’t find much coverage online beyond this video. Being just the endplate, there’s very little energy involved and even without the halo I highly doubt any injury would have occurred.

It is, however, an incident where the halo was struck during an incident and as such must be included.

Incident Rating – YELLOW

Formula E – Nyck De Vries – Seoul 2022

Back to the battery power now with a wet Formula E race in South Korea. It’s a wet race and at the last corner, multiple drivers get caught out whilst trying to avoid each other. It’s chaos as is sometimes seen in Formula E but on this occasion, it would be churlish to put blame on the drivers.

Norman Nato, Nick Cassidy, Sebastien Buemi, Dan Ticktum, Nyck de Vries, Oliver Askew and Andre Lotterer are all involved but it’s Nyck de Vries who is in the most danger. Watching the replay you can see the cars come in with no hope of stopping but unfortunately for de Vries he hits the car of Buemi almost perfectly in line with the rear of the car, causing the car of Nyck to submarine underneath that of Buemi.

I feel like no explanation is necessary in this situation. That’s an entire car which could be hitting Nyck de Vries in the face. It’s highly possible that the initial impact could have bumped the car high enough to avoid the cockpit entirely before it comes down on the roll hoop, but do we really want to evaluate potentially life ending injuries on a ‘maybe’? I think not. After the first impact there was also an additional hit from the car of Andre Lotterer into the rear of de Vries further pushing his car under that of Buemi. What starts as a seemingly innocuous, and even almost amusing, situation turning into an extremely dangerous one in the blink of an eye – this is exactly why motorsport safety must continue to progress and develop.

Incident Rating – RED

Conclusions

It’s crystal clear that the halo and aeroscreen have made a massive difference since their introduction. Ten drivers have had life changing or ending injuries prevented due to the additional head protection offered by these devices. That’s 10 out of a total of 23 drivers involved in incidents where the halo has been involved in some way. If it was even just one then it was a worthwhile endeavor in adding it to the cars, but this many? The worth is incalculable.

A question remains as to why so many incidents have occurred where drivers were in such danger and that is a very important question which must be discussed another time, there is a theory held by some safety researchers that increases in safety can lead to increased in incidents due to the people feeling safer and therefore taking more risks but it’s far too convoluted to get into now.

If you can think of any other incidents that I haven’t covered or don’t think I’ve been made aware of then please leave a comment or throw me a tag/DM over on Twitter.

I will simply conclude this by saying that the halo and aeroscreen are here to stay and were it not around, the world would have had some horrific shocks in the last few years that I don’t think people are prepared for – so let’s keep that safety development going and make sure no one needs to be prepared for the worst, if at all possible.

Thanks for taking the time to read, I hope you read some other pieces of mine on this site and if you’ve enjoyed what I’ve written or think that it has some value for the motorsport community to hear, please share and retweet and leave a comment, I’d very much like to hear feedback about these articles.

If you really liked it then you could even buy me a coffee or leave a small tip, I don’t do this writing professionally so anything would be greatly appreciated but absolutely is not required.

The Halo – Let’s Evaluate:Part Two

Time to continue this look into how well the halo (and/or aeroscreen) has been performing when it’s called upon to do its job. In part one there were seven incidents analysed and, for anyone keeping score, we are already up to three prevented serious injuries or deaths. My personal opinion on safety measures like this is that even one prevention is validation enough, three should be enough for anyone. We still have more to look at though, so let us continue.

Here are the ratings so there’s no need to go back to the first part:

GREEN –

YELLOW –

AMBER –

RED –

IndyCar – Ryan Hunter-Reay – Barber 2021

The superb Barber Motorsports Park played host to IndyCar again in 2021 (I legit LOVE this circuit, it deserves F1 but no the point here). On lap one Josef Newgarden get’s a big swapper coming out of turn three sending him onto the grass, the sudden lack of grip causing him to spin and come back across the track. Multiple drivers are collected in the ensuing chaos – Herta, Kellett, Rosenqvist, Chilton, Johnson and Hinchcliffe – but the second car to be involved is that of Ryan Hunter-Reay.

As Newgarden’s car comes across the track, Hunter-Reay is left with practically zero time to react and makes contact with the right front wheel directly. This impact pitches the wheel up towards the cockpit. It’s difficult to gauge completely and I can only go on what I can see in the Instagram video shared by Hunter-Reay himself. The collision deflects Josef’s car away, also pulling the wheel away from a trajectory which would see it make head contact but there’s still enough time for the wheels to approach the cockpit and again, it’s very hard to be certain. I do believe some contact was made with the aeroscreen on the left side and it’s entirely possible that a glancing blow could have struck the helmet of Ryan. How hard this connection would have been is impossible to say due to the lack of good footage but these wheels are heavy so even a small blow has the potential for big energy. Therefore I’m erring on the side of caution with this one.

Incident Rating – AMBER

FRECA – Multiple Drivers – Monaco 2021

It’s Sunday during the third round of the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine (geez, you can see why it’s shortened to FRECA), race two starts and William Alatalo for Arden get’s tagged coming out of Saint Devote, causing him to slow significantly and create the classic concertina effect which so often leads to chaos. In the ensuing stop-start mess we see over a dozen cars trying to avoid contact by weaving or braking until inevitably someone runs out of space, time and luck. As two cars brake in front of him, Dino Beganovic has nowhere to go, collecting the pair and leaving him near stationary in the middle of the track on the run up the hill to Beau Rivage and Massenet. Beganovic is then struck from behind by Nicola Marinangeli who had even less time to react and subsequently he is collected by Tommy Smith. The hit from Smith is enough to submarine his car under that of Marinangeli, as the car of Nicola elevates the rear wheel comes down directly on the halo of Smith bouncing at least twice before continuing it’s roll.

As the inverted car of Marinangeli carries on rolling it rolls over the rear portion of the car of Beganovic with the rear wing this time being the part directly on top of the halo, rolling over it one way before rolling back and eventually off to the side, actually being held up by the halo structure.

Calling this is slightly tricky as these cars significant lighter than those of F1 or IndyCar but they’re not exactly light. A wheel swiping the head sideways would have introduced an extreme lateral movement of the neck with the HANS device being made less useful because of the direction and as such the safety of Tommy Smith was definitely in jeopardy. I feel that Dino Beganovic was less in danger as it was far less weight involved with how the car was balanced as it rolled over him, it was also a far more flexible and deformable structure which would have been inducing a force upon his head and neck. It’s only fair to give two verdicts for two almost simultaneous but also very distinct impacts. Ironically it appears that Nicola Marinangeli, the car doing the rolling, was never in any danger thanks to the roll hoop and the orientation of the car as it went over Beganovic. Racing can be so counterintuitive sometimes.

Tommy Smith Incident Rating – RED

Dino Beganovic Incident Rating – YELLOW

IndyCar – Conor Daly – Indy 500 2021

During the 2021 Indy 500 Graham Rahal had one of those things that all drivers dread, especially on a oval – losing a wheel. It caused a hard hit into the wall for him but thankfully he was fine and got out under his own power just a little winded and very disappointed. What did happen though is the wheel carrying on at high speed. By pure unlucky chance the wheel managed to clip the remains of Rahal’s broken front wing and begin bouncing down the straight at the exit of turn four.

It’s exactly this type of incident that the halo and aeroscreen were developed for, these are the incidents that killed Henry Surtees, Justin Wilson and nearly killed Felipe Massa. Colton Herta and Helio Castroneves were close enough that they were passed the wheel before it was a danger to them but Conor Daly was a little further back and had about a second to react to Rahal’s car, taking his spotters good call to go low, but his spotter didn’t see the wheel until it was way too late. Daly hit the loose wheel before he himself even saw it.

Thankfully the wheel hit the nosecone of Daly’s car, being deflected away before the screen had to do any work at all, but it’s important to note just how close this was – 6 inches higher in the bounce and the impact would have been absolutely dead centre and, had no screen have been there, directly into his face. It’s a definite green whilst also being 0.01 seconds away from being a red. One other note I’d like to point out is the very well placed fence preventing the wheel from causing any danger off the track itself after going 10 meters or 30 feet in the air. At a road course this could have been quite different.

Incident Rating – GREEN

Formula 1 – Lewis Hamilton – Monza 2021

You all saw it. Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton head to head into turn one after Lewis stops, who is to blame is not the question here and I am NOT getting into that one. With Max on the outside he clips the sausage kerbs (oh those again? Imagine my surprise…….) which unsettles the car and introduces a bounce which leads to the rear wheels coming together and launching Verstappen’s car over that of Hamilton.

Despite being at very low speed the angle of Max’s car going over caused the shoulder of his read wheel to dip inside the ring of the halo structure, this meant that the wheel imparted downward pressure on Lewis’s helmet forcing his forwards. Obviously this also put a lot of pressure on his neck as well and had the halo have not been there this would have been much higher. Because of the slightly glancing manner of the contact this wasn’t prolonged but still significant and could have resulted in neck injuries.

Incident Rating – AMBER

W Series – Multiple Drivers – Spa 2021

Oh wow, this took some effort. So much going on here but thankfully there’s great angles to view from and get a handle on who was at risk and when. This was a huge crash and pretty shocking to watch, please view under advisement. This is the most unfortunate incident, rain starts heavily just at the exact moment as they are in or coming to Eau Rouge, no one could have done anything.

First of all it’ll be easier to get all drivers clearly identified. For convenience this is the order in which they arrive at the crash scene:

Sarah Moore – Red/Green #26 – Scuderia W
Abbie Eaton – Blue/Red/White #44 – Écurie W
Beitske Visser – White/Blue #95 – M.Forbes Motorsport
Ayla Ågren – White/Blue #17 – M.Forbes Motorsport
Belén García – Red/Green #22 – Scuderia W
Fabienne Wohlwend – Black/White #5 – Bunker Racing

First arrive is Sarah Moore, impacting the tyres backwards and bouncing out towards the track. Abbie Eaton arrives next also impacting rearwards and rebounding outwards. Eaton’s car is about to come to rest just in front of Moore’s but this is when Beitske Visser arrives backwards, and collects both send Eaton upwards with a half roll over the car of Moore. The broken front left wheel of Eaton comes down directly on the halo of Moore as Ayla Ågren hits Sarah Moore sideways at much higher speed due to no contact with the barrier, this impact pushes the Moore car into the wheel with greater force and in the slo-mo it can be seen contacting her helmet.

At this point the car of Visser has deflected back towards the barriers and is hit by Belén García as she arrives at speed. Due to the shape of the car noses García goes under the side of Visser’s nose and strikes the halo full in the front. This is the second biggest impact sending Visser into a full 360° flat spin in the air.

Visser again gets no time to relax as the final and biggest impact comes in. Fabienne Wohlwend reaches the scene collecting the rear of the #95 and tearing a large chunk of the gearbox away and sending Visser upside down across the track.

All of these drivers are extremely lucky to escape unhurt with only Visser suffering a minor leg injury, Ågren and Visser were both pulled from the race as a precaution. To focus on the halo we have two absolutely saved from serious injury by it. Both the Scuderia W cars of Sarah Moore and Belén García had massive impacts which were at the head, had there have been no halo I’m certain there would have been, at best, paralysis and at worst….well let’s just hope we never have to deal with that. With the sheer amount of debris flying around I’ve also put the other four drivers with a yellow rating, with so much all over the place it’s amazing no one received a minor injury from that alone.

Sarah Moore Incident Rating – RED

Abbie Eaton Incident Rating – YELLOW

Beitske Visser Incident Rating – YELLOW

Ayla Ågren Incident Rating – YELLOW

Belén García Incident Rating – RED

Fabienne Wohlwend Incident Rating – YELLOW

That’s another five scary incidents looked at with varying and sometimes surprising results. I would have included more but there’s so much involved in the W Series crash that any more would make this over long and with only six remaining, this is a comfortable place to leave things for now. Also, we’re now into the winter break for most series which means that I should be able to complete this before anyone adds more to the list (Indy Pro 2000 and F3 managed to add one each between parts one and two). The point does still remain however that there may be incidents I’ve missed and am not aware of so it you think of any, please leave it as a comment.

Thanks for reading and next time we’ll get this report finished and see how the numbers look. So far though, the halo is proving to truly be a guardian angel.

If you really liked it then you could even buy me a coffee or leave a small tip, I don’t do this writing professionally so anything would be greatly appreciated but absolutely is not required.

The Halo – Let’s Evaluate:Part One

In July of 2022, Silverstone played host to the next round of races for Formulas One, Two and Three. As expected all the series produced spectacular action across all the races, but what wasn’t expected was to have two separate incidents putting halos to the test – first saving Roy Nissany and then saving Zhou Guanyu a short time later.

It was a huge relief to see both escape without injury and the outpouring of support for the halo on social media was very pleasant to see, much less of the anti-halo sentiment we’ve seen in the past, but it did get me thinking – how many lives have actually been saved by it up to this point? So I asked Twitter to send me every crash they could think of in which the halo has been a factor; not if it had saved a life or even made a difference, simply if it had been contacted by something.

There are quite a few. Thankfully people on Twitter also recognise that ‘motorsport’ encompasses all series, not just F1, F2 and F3 like Sky Sports F1 seems to think. (Yes, I fully understand that Sky only has rights to the footage for those series but even so, don’t name your video ‘every time the halo has saved a life in motorsport’ when it’s not all motorsport. Sorry, I hate clickbait.) Furthermore, it’s entirely possible that this is not an exhaustive list and that incidents from other racing series of which I am not, or have not been made, aware. Various national F3 and F4 series also use the halo now as some other less well known racing.

Rating The Incidents

Before I go any further there’s an extremely important point I need to clarify. This is all done with the full luxury of hindsight. We, as observers, can comfortably sit back and analyse pretty much anything in motorsport with the benefits of multiple angles, slow motion replays, trackside photography, telemetry data and even CGI reconstructions of crashes to come to our conclusions. This should in no way be taken as belittling or dismissing any statements or opinions of drivers who believe that the halo has been responsible for their escape from injury or worse. They were there, in the car, with their life on the line and if they feel like it made the difference nothing anyone can say will change that and nor should it, what they believe is of course absolutely valid. If any one of us were in the same position we would say exactly the same.

I’ve been thinking carefully about how to gauge and rate the incidents in an objective manner with as little opinion involved as possible. Obviously this is difficult as anything like this will, by its very nature, carry some opinion, but I will try to keep this based on the evidence presented by video and/or images of the incidents so it’s more of an educated analysis than it is guesswork.

For the actual ratings I’ve elected to stick with a few simple ones as opposed to trying some overly complicated system using percentages, scores out of ten or anything else which gives some numerical result. There’s far too much going on in too short a time to give such complex evaluations. Instead I’ve used four coloured ratings which are as follows:

GREEN –

YELLOW –

AMBER –

RED –

I’ve attempted to keep things in chronological order for simplicity. I see no point in trying to group things together, I can just tally the results at the end.

The Incidents

Formula 2 – Tadasuke Makino – Catalunya 2018

It wasn’t long before we had the first incident bringing the performance of the halo under scrutiny. During the Sunday sprint race of Formula 2’s Spanish round Nirei Fukizumi lost control when attempting to pass Tadasuke Makino on the inside of Turn 4. As the pink Arden car began to oversteer the rear wheel made contact with the rear wheel of the Russian Time car and was launched over the car in front. You can find a video of he collision here, although it is awkward to see clearly. Autosport however also provides some much better still images.

The tyre marks visible here are terrifyingly close to where the helmet of Makino would be sitting, I won’t pretend that they’re not, but what we have to look at how the car of Fukuzumi moves during the incident. After the initial contact, as Nirei Fukuzumi’s car climbs over the rear wheels of Makino’s it takes on a clockwise rotation and the engine cover and roll hoop structure deflect the car away as the rear comes around. Visually it looks even more precarious as the rear wing chops off the T-Cam atop the roll hoop but when you look at the car afterwards you can see marks along the already raised sides of the cockpit where the original, and since the introduction of the halo frankly laughable, attempt at drivers head protection is placed. Again, I’m not trying to diminish what Tadasuke thinks or believes, put yourself in that car and you’re thanking the halo too, but from a reserved and analytical view of the incident we can say with some confidence that he was never in any danger.

Incident Rating – GREEN

Formula 1 – Charles Leclerc – Spa-Francorchamps 2018

For many people the first incident they saw testing the halo was at Spa in 2018. During the start the Renault of Nico Hulkenberg completely missed his braking and slammed into the rear of Fernando Alonso’s McLaren coming into Turn 1. The impact of Hulk sent Alonso out of control, spinning and sliding sideways into the back of the Sauber driven by Charles Leclerc. The angle of Leclerc’s car provided the McLaren with an angled surface to take off, launching over the Sauber whilst still maintaining the rotation imparted by the initial impact. As Alonso comes over the top of Leclerc his right front wheel hits the halo of Leclerc directly as his car continues forward.

The trajectories of the wheel and the helmet of Leclerc are on a direct collision course with extreme force. It’s very important to highlight that the energy involved was sufficient to break the suspension on the McLaren, if there had been no halo then the result would have been catastrophic. The Sauber was still travelling forwards at at least 65kph at this point into a wheel of 10kg, all of this energy would have gone through the head of neck of Leclerc. It’s hard to say what the injuries could have been but it’s highly likely that something severe would have been the case, death is very possible as is paralysis or brain damage.

Incident Rating – RED

Formula 2 – Jordan King and Sean Gelael – Spa-Francorchamps 2019

The tragic events of Spa 2019, in which we lost Anthoine Hubert and Juan Manuel Correa was severely injured, also had the halo play a role for other drivers. Coming over the crest of Raidillon, completely unsighted, drivers following those who had suffered large impacts were met with clouds of debris from the car of Giuliano Alesi who had suffered a puncture through Eau Rouge starting the string of events leading to the horrendous conclusion.

The tyre failure for Alesi caused him to impact the barriers on the left side of the track, destroying his rear wing and scattering it across the track in pieces of various sizes. Obviously following drivers had zero time to react to any debris whilst also having near impossible chances to even see it and two drivers, Sean Gelael and Jordan King had pieces strike their halos.

From the freeze frames above it’s clear to see the debris which hits both cars. From fan captured video (I highly recommend you do not seek this out, I have only done so for purposes of writing this) I can tell you each are of equal size, each being half of the rear wing from the car of Alesi. The piece striking Jordan King appears to hit to the side of the halo’s curved upper section whilst the one for Gelael contacts in the exact centre of the halo, against the main upright which can be seen clearly in the post race image.

Rating this pair of incidents is quite easy. There can be no argument that the halo has prevented debris from impacting drivers helmets, there’s concrete proof of this, but we must consider the nature of the debris in question. Half of a carbon fibre rear wing, whilst very strong and hard, is extremely light and unlikely to risk any kind of penetration or damage to the helmets of either driver. Highly unlikely, but not completely impossible.

Incident Rating – YELLOW

Formula 3 – Alex Peroni – Monza 2019

This horrendous crash had very specific and disastrous reasons which have been covered previously but what isn’t often talked about is how critical the halo was in preventing greater injury to Alex Peroni when his car eventually came back down from orbit.

After striking a sausage kerb on the outside of Parabolica, the Campos car was launched into the air at high speed. During flight to a maximum height of approximately 13 meters and a distance of 89 meters the car completed two full backflips and two and a half rolls, coming down directly on the halo itself on top of the tyre barriers. If you haven’t seen it and find these numbers hard to believe, see for yourself (Side note: It’s almost preferable that this happened to an F3 car, the additional speed of an F1 car or even F2 could have taken this to cataclysmic levels by landing on marshals or even the truck behind the fence. Happily this is all hypothetical and can’t happen again.)

There is flex or ‘some give’ in the energy reduction barriers themselves but without the halo this would still be the entire weight of the car being impacted directly onto the top of Peroni’s helmet with the addition of the speed being carried by the car as it comes down from the sky. Even as it is there was enough energy in the crash to cause a fractured vertebra and severe concussion leading to three months out of racing to recover, without the halo it is virtually certain he would have died from such an impact.

Incident Rating – RED

Formula 1 – Lewis Hamilton – Suzuka 2019

This was a very clear and easy incident to evaluate. In Turn 1 Charles Leclerc understeered into the side of Max Verstappen and wrecked his front wing in the process. The biggest question with regard to this is actually about why a meatball (black and orange) flag wasn’t thrown immediately, in fairness to Ferrari they did call Charles in but he insisted the car was fine but I digress. A lap later his endplate gave up and took chunks of wing element with it on the long and very high speed run towards the famous 130R corner.

You can see the size of the piece in the images above, it’s not insubstantial, but the trajectory takes it to the side and it only barely grazes the halo on the right of Hamilton’s car, simultaneously taking off his wing mirror. Thankfully, he was never in any danger.

Incident Rating – GREEN

IndyCar – Colton Herta and Rinus Veekay – Iowa 2020

This was difficult to call and to be honest I’m still not certain so feel free to comment with your thoughts on it afterwards.

During the 2020 Iowa 250s on lap 157 a green flag restart was waved off causing drivers to abort their acceleration. Similar to what you would see when a standing start car stalls, cars further down the field have less and less time to react as the field concertinas. As Simon Pagenaud checks his speed Rinus Veekay is left with very little time to react and Colton Herta, following close behind has even less, colliding with the rear of Veekay’s car and is launched over the top.

At first glance it’s very easy to think that the aeroscreen made the difference but when you slow it down and take a closer look it appears, to my eye, not to be the case.

The initial impact turns the car of Veekay sideways allowing Herta to ramp up the engine cover after the first lift is provided by going off the rear wheel as is commonly seen in open wheel racing. The size of IndyCar’s makes it awkward to see but that car of Herta follows the shape of the car of Rinus with the floor skating upwards, over the body, and eventually over the roll hoop. It’s possible, even likely, that early on during the climb that the nose cone contacts the side of the aeroscreen but the deflection provided by the car floor against the body keeps trajectory moving away from the helmet of Veekay all the time and also provides enough for Herta to clear the car under him entirely. You have to slow down the video and really look closely, I watched a dozen times at different speeds, but I’m convinced that there was never actually any danger of contact with the helmet of Veekay. It would have been very, VERY close, but similar to Makino there wasn’t the trajectory to make contact.

Incident Rating – GREEN

Formula 1 – Romain Grosjean – Bahrain 2020

We’ve all seen it. It even spawn a trend on YouTube reaction channels with generally non-motorsport fans watching it in awe, so much so it even made it to Channel 4’s Gogglebox on national TV in the UK – outside of Formula One broadcasting – due to the release of Drive to Survive on Netflix. At this point there’s almost no reason to even talk about this one, so I’ll try to keep it brief.

There is no debate on whether the halo saved the life of Romain Grosjean whatsoever. Without the halo the damage inflicted upon his head would have been catastrophic as, when piercing the armco barrier, it would have been direct contact striking at eye level. What exactly may have happened is open to speculation, drivers are not exposed like the days of the horrific decapitation of Helmuth Koinigg, but such force against the head simply would not be survivable – remember Grosjean was travelling significantly faster than Jules Bianchi was at the point of impact.

You can see in the screenshots above, taken from the superb animation of the accident by Crashalong, that the halo is absolutely crucial in making the difference. The near invulnerable construction of the halo from titanium allowed it to easily stay intact when forcing the sections of armco away from the cockpit. Case closed…….or is it?

*The rating for this is obviously red, there’s no possible way Romain could have survived this crash without the halo but there was a risk of there being a sting in the tail. In safety research there is a concept known as Revenge Effects, the most famous example – but excruciatingly difficult to accurately get data for, is that of bicycle helmets. With the big push made for the use of cycling helmets there was obviously a dramatic reduction in recorded head injuries as a result, what wasn’t expected however was a perceived increase in the number of neck injuries due to the heavier torque loads put on spines during head impacts with the additional weight of the helmets themselves. There’s a lot more to it than that and it remains a contentious issue across all areas of safety study, but you get the idea. Once Grosjean’s car had come to rest and the inferno was raging, you could see him trying to get out of the car, but naturally the instinct of a racing driver had him trying to come out of the top of the car which was impossible as it was stuck firmly against the back side of the barriers. In the footage, and told in later interviews with Romain, you can see a pause between his first efforts to get out and then the final moving when he did escape. When he finally did make his way out of the cockpit to safety, it was through the left side opening of the halo, not the top. If it had simply been a taller driver in the car such as Esteban Ocon or George Russell there’s a fair chance this escape route would not have been possible; similarly if this had been the IndyCar aeroscreen installed then we would have borne witness to a driver death that day.

Incident Rating – RED *With complications

That’s only seven incidents looked at with (at time of this writing, as motorsport endeavors to add more) twelve more to go so I shall leave it here, otherwise this will become very long and difficult to read in a sitting. From these seven however we have three lives saved with, what I believe is, absolute certainty. Even one life saved would make the introduction of the halo or aeroscreen worthwhile so to have three already is extremely satisfying to see. Are there other reasons at play for a seeming increase in these incidents? More risks being taken? That’s something else to explore at a later date, but for now let’s be happy that there are drivers still on track today, racing to chase theirs dreams, who would not have been a few short years ago.

I will be continuing with part two concurrently after this but I’m not the fastest of writers so please bear with me.

Thanks for taking the time to read, I hope you read some other piece of mine on this site and if you’ve enjoyed what I’ve written or think that it has some value for the motorsport community to hear please share and retweet and leave a comment, I’d very like to hear feedback about these articles. If you really liked it then you could even buy me a coffee or leave a small tip, I don’t do this writing professionally so anything would be greatly appreciated but absolutely is not required.

No-Rouge?

Ask any motorsport fan from around the world what the best corner is in racing and I would guess that at least half will reply with Eau Rouge or Eau Rouge-Raidillon; this isn’t without good reason. Diving downhill on a long run from turn one of La Source, cars are met with a rapid left-right flick at near maximum speed whilst the car bottoms out as the suspension compresses when reaching the deepest part of the dip, then leading up a gentle left hander with a massively steep incline to then arrive on the Kemmel Straight. It’s one of those corners one can comfortably label as ‘butt-clenching’, fast and dynamic it always looks incredible when cars are going through at full tilt and anyone not awed by seeing the spectacle is fooling themselves.

It does, however, have a darker side. A danger surpassing any other corner I can think of and for many it carries the memory of that danger deep within it’s surface. Death. The spectre of death is always present in motorsport, very racer knows there’s a risk every time they get in a car, on a bike, in a boat or whatever mode of transport they’re racing; they accept that certain level of risk which comes with the territory but is there a point when this risk elevates to unacceptable levels? Many say there is; Callum Ilott for example:

Main thing is that everyone is out of their cars, @rigondavide and @JaitkenRacer will be checked at the hospital and I hope all will be good.

I would also like to say that there needs to be a change at this corner and I’m very surprised nothing has changed yet. Enough is enough. https://t.co/TiHw5yZhu1
— Callum Ilott (@callum_ilott) July 31, 2021

This is a certified racing driver, he was in the F2 race at Spa in 2019, I’d say he has every right to make such comments and they should be taken seriously.

The subject of how dangerous any particular thing may be tends to often get derailed by subjective opinion, like everything else I suppose, which is why I try to use as much of my experience and knowledge in safety when writing about safety matters within motorsport. I strongly suspect this will end up derailed too, despite my best efforts, but I have to try.

Why is it dangerous?

These corners are old. Very old. The current configuration is practically unchanged since the original layout had the Ancienne Douanne loop removed in 1939. For anyone keeping score that is 82 years ago. During the intervening time the only real safety change came about after the death of Stefan Bellof in 1985. The barriers were shifted back, away form the track to allow for greater run off and the addition of gravel but only by around 20 meters (65 feet). We have a section of track, largely unchanged for over 80 years, that has cars now racing on it which can carry around 160kph (100mph) more speed through corners and the run off areas have been extended far enough to accommodate less than half of that. Even less after the removal of the gravel as asphalt run off provides much less slowing for an out of control car. As things stand, the longest run off distance between track and barrier is a paltry 23 meters (75 feet). Yes, twenty-three at one of the fastest points of any track on the calendar (I am rounding up quite generously too).

The elevation change of the corner adds another level of danger. The forces acting on the cars are massive as the gravity acting on them is both amplified and attenuated from the compression at the bottom of the hill followed by negative G forces going over the crest. A climb of 28 meters (92 feet) over a distance of 344 meters (1129 feet), for the entire section is pretty much unheard of anywhere else other than, perhaps, a hill climb.

As was seen in the accident at the 24 Hours of Spa involving four cars and resulting in multiple fractures for Jack Aitken, it’s not just the forces form this elevation which causes problems. After left-right at the bottom of the hill, the left over the crest of the hill offers extremely limited visibility. Taking a look at a still from the ob board of Hakkinen in 1998 we can see that, as the crest is approached, the visibility of what lies just beyond he crest is zero. I include an image showing the camera position to highlight that even this view, with zero visibility remember, is around 150mm (6 in) higher than the drivers eye.

When comparing to cars of today you also to consider a few more points which can exacerbate these issues: The cars are faster offering less time to react, drivers sit lower in the cars, have helmets with smaller viewports and have the Halo all of which further reduce forward visibility.

I’m making such an issue of visibility because of the run offs and barriers. In the 24 Hours crash as well as, to some degree, the death of Anthoine Hubert it’s the barriers ability to rebound a car back into the path of other cars, whilst at the same time eliminating their forward momentum, which makes the lack of visibility so important. Cars at high speed are left with near zero time to react to a damaged vehicle, or even just debris from one, being strewn across the circuit.

I’m looking into the ‘what if’ category for a moment here but despite not being an incident which has occurred yet, this is how evaluation of possible safety issues should be done. The pit lane exit. It’s probably never even crossed your mind because it’s yet to have an incident but the pit exit runs, completely exposed, alongside the most dangerous points of this corner sequence. In this image I’ve highlighted the portion of the pit exit which has exactly zero protection from the live racetrack. This is even after changes to the pit exit from when it was even more exposed before as the rejoin point was directly opposite the Raidillon apex. Sometimes I wonder what people were thinking.

The reason I bring this up is that, in only slightly different circumstances, we could have seen already enormous crashes end up even worse. Look below and you’ll see where I’ve roughly shown the impact points of the crashes for Kevin Magnussen in 2016 (Yellow), Anthoine Hubert in 2019 (Pink) and Jacques Villeneuve in 1998 (Red) and whilst admittedly F1/2 do not use this pit exit, the point still stands for many other series.

I understand that when Villeneuve crashed it was all gravel there, but it doesn’t stop the same crash happening again.

Imagine any one of these happens when someone is exiting the pits, we have two scenarios. In the first, a driver accelerates hard as they race to rejoin the track only for a car to appear in front of them and suddenly lose all speed as it impacts the barrier. In the second a driver is exiting the pits and gets collected in the side or rear by a completely out of control car at huge speed. Either one of these then further adds to cars and/or debris across the run off and/or track causing more danger. I think we can all agree that, despite appearing like a worst case, it is very possible. I dread to even contemplate the idea of what could happen on the run to Eau Rouge with cars coming together and no making the corner, pit exit cars which have yet to build up any speed due to the kink at the top of the hill would be at the mercy of pure luck with what might happen.

What Can Be Done?

There are a few options to rectify these issues that I have come up with, some small changes, some larger changes and at one huge change. All carry different levels of alteration to the track – from small to large and all carry changes to the safety levels – again from small to large.

The Official Changes – I’ll start with what Spa-Francorchamps is actually doing (some work in progress, no idea as to how far this has gone). In this video you get a full list of everything planned as well as rough CGI of what will change for the corners in question.

You can see that there’s quite a large area of additional run off being created on the left of the complex as well as taking back the barrier which juts out near the apex of the left over the hill. These are excellent plans but I fear they don’t take things far enough. You can also see that prior to this area the run off remains unchanged at 20 meters (65 feet) maximum and the changed area extends only to around 35 meters (114 feet) at it’s widest point. The plans do state that this is to be a gravel trap which will aid in slowing cars greatly, especially when including the incline – less likelihood of skipping over the gravel -but not for bikes which is why these changes are being made. Anyone who watches MotoGP avidly will know just how far the bikes and riders can tumble through gravel traps and it’s very often much further than this. Furthermore, this gravel addition will only be useful up to roughly the end of the blue hatched area in the image below; after this point the cars are already becoming unloaded from the change in elevation and will skip across the gravel with little difference as to it being there or not. This also applies to the right side run off after the hill.

References are also made for changing the right side run off after the hill to gravel and extending it, although I’m not sure how well this can be achieved as the ground drops away quite sharply just beyond the fence itself. You can see on this elevation profile the ground drops away by 2.5 meters(8.2 feet) in roughly the same distance of the run off width. It can be done but this is large scale civil engineering, building a grandstand is extremely simple, re-profiling the actual lay of the land is something else entirely and with a budget of €80 million for all the works being carried out, it’s a big ask.

Doing some quick maths to highlight this issue, to extend the existing run off by it’s own width, which is only 16.5 meters (54 feet) would require at minimum 3506.25 cubic meters (123822.05 cubic feet) of soil or dirt. This alone works out to being 4523 tonnes of material. That’s just the volume of material to even out the slope. Major undertaking.

My Options: The Safest One – This will obviously be the most controversial and I’m certain most people wont like it, hell I don’t particularly like it but it is the only possible option which fully eliminates any risk at all of repeating accidents like that of Hubert. The idea? Reintroduce Ancienne Douanne. It does have several positives to it too. First and foremost, it is as safe as it is possible to make this section of the track. We have larger run offs for the parts which now also have reduced speed, from a safety standpoint this is win-win. Second, as I was doing this I realised that this would actually be better for racing, no seriously! Through Eau Rouge we do get the relatively rare side by side moments but there’s largely no actual overtaking which happens, just set ups for the long and overpowered drag down the Kemmel.

Please excuse very rough photoshop skills. I’m no graphic artist.

With this solution, it not only introduces two overtaking points – one at the ‘now a corner’ Eau Rouge and another at the hairpin of Douanne. After this we have cars in most closer proximity for the drag along the Kemmel Straight but coming out of a medium speed corner instead of already being at near max-V. Third, it makes the pit exit much safer with the entire pit exit lane protected behind barriers until it’s time to rejoin the track and it also rejoins next to cars at a lower speed. The negative from this however is that Eau Rouge-Raidillon is gone, this will be a lot for people to take. I’m absolutely certain that 100% of you, reading this right now, cannot deny the possible great racing we could get from this layout but at the same time I’m also certain 95% or more of you simply can’t stomach the idea of losing those legendary kinks which give so much excitement.

My Options: The Combination – This final one takes the best of the official change announced by the circuit itself with a simple addition to fix the pit issue. It is great to see such a large run off added at the top of the hill on the left side, it will vastly reduce the chance of cars ending up back on the track after a crash but it also doesn’t address the right hand side or the pit exit. What I’ve done is to simply add SAFER barrier along the full length of the pit exit which can also be altered/added to with the airbag barriers required for hosting MotoGP races, as is the plan.

Conclusions

It hasn’t taken me long to come up with these ideas and, of course, it would be no big undertaking to adapt and modify such suggestions to suit the engineering possibilities available. The run off could well be extended at the top of the hill, despite being a massive amount of building works it can be done and any number of other possibilities could be done but they must involve people who have experience and knowledge of both safety studies and of driving on these tracks. When drivers are openly speaking about changes being required, and Callum Ilott is not alone in making such statements, then further investigation absolute has to be carried out.

I will sign off by asking that you read my other pieces on safety, they will give you an insight into how my mind works and how much detail I’ve gone into when studying and researching safety. I find it quite easy to look at these things without sentiment about racing history or the spirit of competition, with regard to safety, only the safety matters.

The Illusion of Safety

Formula One is dangerous. Formula One has always been dangerous and in the early days, ‘dangerous’ doesn’t really describe the levels of peril drivers often found themselves in. In the first 20 years of the series there were 14 deaths just at normal F1 events with a further 16 at non-championship races and during the Indy 500. Safety improvements during this time were token at best, it was 2 years before helmets were made mandatory and 13 years before warning flags were even standardised. Something had to change.

In 1966 motorsport received the catalyst it needed to push for safer racing and it nearly came from a driver paying the ultimate price paid by so many before. During a race at the old 14 kilometer layout of Spa-Francorchamps, Sir Jackie Stewart suffered a huge crash after aquaplaning at 266kmh (165mph), his car struck a telephone pole, a shed and came to rest in a farmers outbuilding. His steering column broke and pinned his leg to the chassis, trapping him inside the now banana shaped cockpit which was filling with fuel, like a bathtub, from the punctured tank. There were no marshals to help, no equipment, nothing. After separately crashing off due to the rain at the same place, Graham Hill and Bob Bondurant managed to free Stewart from his car only by way of borrowing tools from the boot of a spectators car to remove the steering wheel and then carried him into a nearby barn where he lay on the flat bed in the back of a pick up truck. Hill advised Jackie to remove his clothing as he was drenched in fuel only for some nuns to enter some minutes later and put them back on him. After finding an old ambulance Hill returned and stripped Stewart again after which he ambulance ferried him to what was laughably called the medical centre for the track. Stewart later recalled during interview, “There were no doctors, I was left on a stretcher, on the floor, surrounded by cigarette ends. It was filthy.” After yet more time Stewart was loaded into another ambulance which set off for Liege Hospital, with wife Helen on board, and promptly got lost. Jackie didn’t receive proper medical care until a private jet was arranged to fly him back to the UK.

This is a famous incident as a result of the campaigning done by Stewart in the years afterward – and I’m sure you’ve all heard of Jackie racing with a spanner taped to his steering wheel, just in case – but if you’re learning of this for the first time I can well imagine you sitting there wondering how a racing car can hit a shed or farm building. Before 1970 the long track had no alterations from it’s normal daily use as public roads which meant, quoting Jackie, “if you went off the road, you didn’t know what you were going to hit”. This shambles of a situation led to Sir Jackie Stewart starting his long fight to improve safety in motor racing.

Sadly, change came very slowly despite his efforts and of the other 15 drivers who started the 1966 Belgian Grand Prix alongside Jackie, 5 of them would die during the next 5 years. Lorenzo Bandini, Jim Clark, Mike Spence, Jochen Rindt and Jo Siffert.

Change however, did come. In 1972, as a direct result of Stewart’s efforts, Circuit Zandvoort in the Netherlands, renowned as incredibly dangerous due to a large number of fatal accidents in preceding years, remained off the Formula One calendar as massive safety upgrades were carried out. The entire track was now encompassed by barriers with a three meter verge between track and armco, there were marshal points spaced evenly around the circuit, fire extinguishers at these posts and a race control tower able to oversee the track and monitor situations with greater efficiency. Zandvoort was now comfortably the safest racing facility in the world. Or so one might think.

When implementing safety protocols and equipment, the operation and management of them must also be accounted for. The primary issues which would later bring Zandvoort again into the spotlight about safety were those of availability and reliability.

During the 1973 Dutch Grand Prix, Roger Williamson in only his second F1 race crashed heavily coming out of the Tunnel Oost corner due to a suspected tyre failure, his car slid for 275m (300 yds) across the track and came to rest upside down and despite being uninjured by the crash itself, Williamson was trapped inside the cockpit of the car which was now burning after sparks ignited the fuel leaking from severed lines. Another March driver, David Purley, witnessed the accident, stopped his car immediately and ran to assist but the race continued. Communication between marshals and race control was unreliable and the race continued with only local yellow flags as race control were unaware of a driver trapped within the now raging fire. As a result of this and, possibly, because the car of Purley was abandoned on the left of the track whilst Williamsons’ was on the right, no other drivers were aware of the predicament either and none stopped to help, all believing that Purley was simply attempting to save his own car, their attention presumably being drawn right by the fire. As David Purley valiantly tried to turn the car over he received no help from marshals either. The marshals, whilst now positioned at strategic points around the circuit, were not provided with any fire resistant clothing and as such were physically incapable of providing the needed manpower to right the car, their ability to act was unreliable. They could give the much needed fire fighting assistance though, right? Sadly, wrong. There was not an extinguisher at every marshal post, every other one at best, meaning one had to be brought from a much greater distance, costing valuable time, and it was only one. Referring again to the important elements which make up safety management, firefighting equipment was unavailable. On top of this marshals and drivers were not given adequate instruction in the operation of the equipment leading to more vital moments being squandered due to their performance with the equipment being unreliable once it eventually arrived.

Despite the herculean efforts of Purley, who was awarded the George Medal for gallantry, Roger Williamson succumbed to the fire. Everything put in place to increase safety for drivers came to naught thanks to oversight and false confidence. On a side note, I urge you NOT to look up video of the accident if you’ve never borne witness to it, it’s one of the most tragic and harrowing pieces of footage in the entire history of motorsport.

This is why I talk so often and so vehemently about safety management, you can’t just put measures in place without consciously evaluating how they’re going to be used and how the systems integrate when under pressure. Why have fire extinguishers if people don’t know how to use them? What use is a communication system that is prone to failure? This is the illusion of safety, as so perfectly highlighted by Tyler Durden in Fight Club when referencing an aircraft emergency exit door procedure at 30,000 feet (yes, I know this is a largely facetious line as the procedure is in case of an emergency ground or water landing but the way it’s expressed in the movie fits.) Always detailed thought and planning should be given to safety procedures and equipment, when you look at the horrific death of Roger Williamson the simple addition of fireproof gloves he would have been saved, hell even oven gloves would have been enough for the tiny amount of time it would have taken to right the car.

Many lessons have been learned not just in motorsport but all across our lives over the years because of incidents such as this but as with everything in safety, there is always room for improvement provided that we keep our awareness, evaluation and observation levels high.

Halo Misconceptions

Alex Lynn, driving for Mahindra, escaped a terrifying looking crash in the second race of Formula E’s first round at Diriyah in Saudi Arabia. It was yet another testament to the incredible strength of todays race cars in many series but within minutes of video and images emerging online I found twitter awash with so many comments of “Thank goodness for the halo” and “I’ll never talk about how ugly the halo is on a Formula E car again” which is truly a wonderful sentiment to hear, but it’s misplaced as it has been in a couple of other incidents. William on twitter reworded my rambling tweet perfectly “If everyone and everything becomes ‘saved by the halo’ the importance and significance of an actual ‘saved by the halo’ becomes diluted.” It’s just one of the misconceptions which seems to remain in the motorsport viewing community and it got me thinking, so let’s see if we can get a few things analysed and in the open.

Aesthetically, it’s not the worst option

No, seriously, it isn’t! Back when the halo was introduced in 2018 the main cry from all those who hated it was “It’s so ugly! It ruins the look of a formula One car! It’s the ugliest thing ever in F1!” Is it, is it really?

There were also repeated cries of “But it’s meant to be open cockpit!” which, unless all the naysayers knew something the rest of us didn’t, it is. But the primary complaint was ugliness which makes me absolutely certain that none of these people ever saw the other proposed designs from during the first phase of its development. Just take a look at some of these awful monstrosities, all but one of the them far worse than the halo that was eventually implemented.

Yikes.

I will say however that there was one early design which looked much better than the halo we have now, stylish and aggressive, it looked right. Sadly it was deeply flawed as a wheel striking it could have have some of the debris still reach the drivers helmet as the tyre is penetrated by the horns and would also be highly likely to become lodged in place, costing precious time in the event of an assisted driver extrication after a catastrophic accident. It really does look cool though, in my opinion at least.

The good looking but operationally flawed halo proposal

Hopefully in time the FIA will decide to go the same route as Indycar and use their aeroscreen solution because, not only does it look fantastic, it completes the requirements for driver head protection. There won’t be any Massa incidents with the aeroscreen. So for now, be happy with the halo that we got, because it could have been a toast rack.

It’s not made from carbon fibre

This is a fairly short one.

It’s amazing how often you still see comments, tweets, posts or whatever where people exclaim about how amazingly strong carbon fibre is to be able to used for this. Well, it isn’t, but titanium is.

Carbon fibre is an incredible material in many ways but it simply isn’t suited to a purpose such as this. The problem is that whilst having supreme strength and stiffness, carbon fibre will not stand up to repeated punishment nor will it retain any strength after it reaches it’s limit, once it’s broken, it’s broken and you might as well have a leather apron for all the good it’ll do during an impact. Carbon fibre as you probably know from various Formula One videos and articles is made from fibres layered in molds along with a resin which is all then baked under high pressure in an autoclave (a giant pressurised oven) fixing it into the mold shape to meet its designed purpose. Like wood however, it can only withstand so much. Grab a stick from a tree and try to bend it, depending on the type of wood and size of stick it’ll probably be stiff but will bend and continue to bend until it breaks, once broken though it’s done, you only have that initial strength. Metals are far better at maintaining their strength in similar situations, some are better than others and titanium is the best. Titanium is, pound for pound, by far the strongest of metals and can withstand extreme amounts of abuse before failing, just look at any YouTube video where people are shooting it and you’ll see just how resilient it is.

The image above is a substrate plate upon which additive manufacturing is performed – 3D printing but with metals and slightly different process. This is made from titanium, is 250mm(9.84in) square and 15mm(0.59in) thick weighing 4.23kgs(9.3lbs). If this were to be made from 304 series stainless steel, a grade commonly used for a huge number of applications such as the aftermarket high performance exhaust you might have on your car, it would weigh 7.42kgs(16.35lbs) whilst still not being as strong as the titanium. That’s an increase of roughly 75% in weight for not as much strength. As you are certainly aware this is absolutely a no-go when it comes to motorsport, weight (or the lack of it) is king. Unfortunately, due to the difficulty in refining titanium it’s also extremely expensive. The plate above, just as raw material value is worth around £250($346 at time of writing) and with the properties, particularly hardness, making it much more difficult to work with around £700($970) with the CNC machining done (this is milled to a flat surface accurate to 0.03mm), the same plate in steel would be around £2($2.77) raw and £20($27.73) machined.

Having titanium as the main structure for the halo is essential as it’s small size to minimise restrictions in drivers vision makes carbon fibre not a viable solution. In a Racecar Engineering article looking at how the halo is constructed it’s stated that “Many believe the Halo is made from carbon fibre, but although carbon fibre is strong it isn’t able to deal with impacts very well.” which is true. Just to highlight this point (admittedly in an extreme example) in the images below you’ll see two gun rounds – .380 ACP and .50 BMG along with two guns which fire them – I’m sure you can appreciate the colossal difference in power. What might sound like madness is that the titanium substrate will stop the .50 caliber round whilst the same thickness of carbon fibre will struggle to stop the .380. Now of course this is taking the comparison to a ridiculous degree but it does highlight the difference between the materials with regard to point impacts very well.

It’s perfectly understandable that people will get the impression that F1 halos are made from carbon fibre as the teams use CF fairings to minimise their aerodynamic impact but if you look closer at Formula 2 and 3 cars, you will see that their halos are simply painted, the feeder series simply cannot afford to be making aero coverings for them.

Ok, before we get into the next incident let me say this, as all or most of you probably know (or certainly know if you’ve read my other articles) I am one of the biggest safety advocates around. When you’ve done the work that I have in construction and engineering it becomes second nature and when you study it out of a desire to understand more and maybe one day even help improve it (I wish) you really start to see things differently and analyse incidents with greater scrutiny. I have been, and will continue to be, one of the first to praise safety innovations and procedures like the halo when they make a big difference to the possible outcome of an incident. Charles Leclerc at Spa in 2018, Lewis Hamilton at Suzuka in 2019, both Sean Gelael and Jordan King were protected from flying debris during the horrific accident which tragically took Anthoine Hubert from us and of course, Romain Grosjean’s escape from an inferno at Bahrain. Irrefutable proof that the halo has done it’s job and without it at least two drivers would be dead and several others potentially suffering severe injury.

I must also say that what comes during the next and following two sections is not to preach at anyone, put anyone down or even change anyone’s opinion. If anything I hope to make motorsport viewing a little less stressful for people who become anxious when a big incident happens. There have been a number of times when I’ve received messages from followers who struggle to cope with seeing such scary things, even when the driver emerges unscathed and it’s perfectly normal, I try my best to alleviate such worries by referencing various safety devices and protocols and looking at what’s happened to help people worry less. Hopefully, by putting all of these things down here it will allow people to see things from a different perspective and save them from such worries. This will not always be the case of course, sometimes we really have no idea what has happened and what the outcome might be, Grosjean was a prime example of this and I myself was extremely anxious, but most of the time I see great concern where a driver is almost certain to be safe and I hate to see people suffer such anxiety needlessly. So with that, let’s continue.

It didn’t save Tadasuke Makino

One thing that is vitally important when talking about safety measures is being sure not to attribute success of a device or procedure incorrectly. Attributing a positive outcome to the wrong changes can, in a very worst case scenario, lead to even more disastrous outcomes down the line as a result of complacency. “Oh this kind of crash is fine, thing X,Y or Z is there now so it’s perfectly safe.” This is the kind of thinking which has killed many drivers already, “This hasn’t happened so obviously it’s not going to, right?” No, wrong. Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna are examples here, no energy reduction barriers of any kind at the highest speed points of Imola despite Gerhard Berger and Ricardo Patrese barely escaping from horrendous crashes into the concrete with their lives.

The post race images of Makino’s car are terrifying it’s true, the tyre marks on the engine cover and the halo itself suggest that it’s been instrumental in preventing injury but when you look at the incident you can see from the position of the cars that his head was not going to be in danger. After the initial contact, as Nirei Fukuzumi’s car climbs over the rear wheels of Makino’s it takes on a clockwise rotation and the engine cover and roll hoop structure deflect the car away as the rear comes around. Visually it looks even more precarious as the rear wing chops off the T-Cam atop the roll hoop but when you look at the car afterwards you can see marks along the already raised sides of the cockpit, the original, and since the introduction of the halo frankly laughable, attempt at drivers head protection.

The roll hoop structure is incredibly strong and more than capable of preventing Fukuzumi’s car from getting any closer to the head of Makino. There are similarities to the incident with Alonso and Leclerc at Spa but the difference, crucially in this case, is that the rotation is taking the car away from where the driver is in danger as opposed to towards it. Had there not have been a halo on the Sauber then the front right wheel of the McLaren would have carried on directly into the helmet of Leclerc with a force that we saw was enough to break the suspension.

Now before you all go off at me in comments and tweets let me say that I am 100% happy that it was there, I will take the debate of “Did it really save them?” over “Would it have saved them?” every time and Tadasuke says himself that he believes the halo saved his life which, under the circumstances, I think is more than understandable, I’m sure all of us would be saying exactly the same thing in his position but from the outside we can afford to look more objectively.

It’s also possible I’m completely wrong about this one, of course it is, but I am one of those people who struggle to let an accident go. I have to understand what happened and why, sometimes I think it’s a part of my health anxiety problems that I have some obsessive need to comprehend why people die in various situations, this isn’t a disgusting death obsession it’s a life obsession. I analyse accidents in motorsport just as in the workplace in order to find solutions to prevent them, or at least prevent the outcomes, from happening again and whilst I’m sure this one would have unfolded safely without the halo there, I reiterate I am far, far happier it was there, just in case.

It does nothing in a rollover

Here we get to what inspired this piece. As I mentioned in the introduction Alex Lynn escaped unhurt from a scary looking incident during Formula E’s second race of the seasons opening round in Saudi Arabia. So many people, including double FE champion Jean Eric Vergne and Mahindra Team Principle, Dilbagh Gill, talked about how “The halo did it’s job” and “..contributed considerably to his [Lynn’s] safety.”. I’m sorry folks, but it did nothing. Honestly my biggest worry for Lynn was sliding into the barriers backwards at high speed, that’s always extremely painful for a driver and carries injury risks all of it’s own, but I digress.

I can hear you already. “Look at Ericsson’s crash at Monza!”, “There was damage on Stroll’s halo in Bahrain!” and “Lynn slid along on it!” and yes, there was clearly visible damage to all of the halo’s in these incidents, but it’s not from the halo having anything to do with keeping the driver safe.

There is a rule that has been in place in open cockpit motorsport for a very long time stating that there must be clearance (the amount varies) between the drivers helmet and a line drawn from the top of the roll hoop to the front of the cockpit opening (in later years this point become the secondary, cockpit rollover hoop).

In years gone by they didn’t bother with measurements and numbers as such, they simply tested it physically with a stick. You can see it being done below in the opening scene of Rush and this is factually accurate, they literally did this. I’m sure if you looked long enough you’d see it in old footage of F1 races.

Talk to the more venerable people in the paddocks and they’ll probably tell you it’s known as the ‘broomstick test’ and if you google that, you’ll instantly see images of it being done on amateur racing MX-5’s and similar vehicles. I have no idea if they still call it that in F1 or if they still physically test it with a stick but the rule still stands.

The reason I talk about this rule is that the halo itself protrudes above this line, it wouldn’t be much use for head protection if it didn’t. It’s also wider than the cockpit opening meaning that in any ground contacting rollover situation it is guaranteed to be making contact with the floor. For a car coming to rest perfectly upside down, see Hulkenberg in Abu Dhabi 2018, or some other awkward position, such as if Alonso’s car had featured a halo in Australia 2016 it could actually cause extrication issues but that’s another area of safety study we can address another time.

For now, even if you see scrapes and damage all over the halo after a rollover you have to trust that it was the harnesses and roll hoop doing the work to protect the driver and if you’re still not sure, there’s a few images below featuring rolls.

See any helmets impacting the ground? Me neither, they’re perfectly safe I assure you. In the crashes of Lynn, Stroll, Ericsson and whoever else you care to mention the roll hoop is more than sufficient. This is literally not the halos job.

There is, however, a small side note to this. The halo does provide additional surface area to prevent a car from digging down into gravel or soft/wet grass, this has historically been the only real weakness of the roll structures and the main reason for moves towards large tarmac run off areas instead of gravel traps. With the halo now in place I do think a lot of the removed gravel and/or grass areas can return as the potential risks are now acceptably mitigated. I’m pretty sure Derek Warwick would have preferred to have a halo stopping the car from digging in at Hockenheim in 1993.

It would not have saved Jules Bianchi

This is going to be tough for some to accept, I see it talked about frequently, but it needs to be put to bed.

The halo would not have saved Jules, nor was Jules the reason for the halo being developed. Work on developing some kind of additional driver head protection began as far back as 2011 after the accidents resulting in the injuries to Felipe Massa at Hungary in 2009 and the death of Henry Surtees at Brands Hatch also in 2009. The crash of Binachi certainly brought the need for greater protection firmly back into the spotlight, as did the death of Justin Wilson in IndyCar the following year but work had already been started.

For the crash of Jules Bianchi, the only thing which would have saved him is the tractor not being there, it’s literally the only way. During development for the halo the FIA investigated 21 different incidents and accidents from various series in three categories – car to car, car to environment and external object – where drivers were either severely injured or killed as well as being at extreme risk of injury but escaping unharmed. For example the crash involving Alexander Wurz and David Coulthard at Albert Park in 2007 is a terrifyingly close call as you can see below or maybe remember; even knowing they both got out without a scratch I still find it hard to watch without flinching.

Wurz and Coulthard collide in Australia, 2007

The results of these investigations were overwhelmingly positive or ‘positive on balance’ with positive on balance, an odd turn of phrase admittedly, to mean that it gives a much higher probability of a survivable incident compared to not having it without a clear conclusion being able to be drawn. If we take Felipe Massa as a working example here, with the halo there’s a very high chance that it would have deflected the spring away safely but conversely there’s also a small chance that it could have deflected the spring downwards into his chest. It’s such an improbable event to begin with that any number of ‘what if’ scenarios have to be considered, if he had arrived one thousandth of a second later the spring might have gone directly through his visor, one hundreth of a second earlier and it might not have even hit the car at all and as such a clear ‘positive’ outcome can’t, in good faith, be claimed. All of the investigated incidents are listed below, I do not recommend looking them up.

Out of all of the 21 scenarios only two neutral results were returned. Michael Schumacher and Antonio Liuzzi at Abu Dhabi in 2010 I can only assume is deemed neutral as the car of Liuzzi appears to have been deflected to the side before the point at which a halo would have come into play thus rendering the question moot and the crash of Jules Bianchi is stated as neutral with a footnote stating quote “Beyond the halos capabilities”. In truth, I believe that not even a fully enclosed LMP1 car would have have offered sufficient protection to result in a survivable accident, like I said earlier, only not hitting the tractor unit would have made any difference and I think I made my feelings about that situation very clear in an earlier article.

I hope some of you will be able to see what, at first glance, are extremely scary and worrying incidents with a calmer outlook and know that, things really are as safe as they have ever been and the halo is a superb and vital addition to the safety without replacing anything we already had. If you choose to still believe that it helps tumbling cars protect their drivers or that the feisty Makino is still racing because of it, that’s completely up to you, of course it is and it would be incongruous of me to suggest otherwise, I just want you to be a little more confident and less stressed than I know many are when such alarming images appear on the TV during race day 🙂

What is ‘Safe’?

What do we mean when we say that something is ‘safe’? It’s the obvious question when any examination of an accident happens but it’s not the simple question many consider it to be. It occurs to me that, if I intend to write about safety within motorsport, then maybe the language of safety should be covered before I go any further.

Every single thing in life has some risk attached to it. Crossing the road is an inherently dangerous activity due to the very nature of traffic and how it moves, but we consider some places and times to be more safe than others; at a pedestrian crossing or a narrower road for example. Clean water can kill you if you drink too much of it or fall into it and drown whereas contaminated water can kill you from just a small sip, so it seems logical to call clean water safe and dirty water unsafe but what exactly do we mean when we say this?

In 1976 William W. Lawrence said safety is defined as “a thing is safe if its risks are acceptable. A thing is safe with respect to a given person or group, at a given time, if its risk is fully known and if those risks would be judged acceptable, in light of settled value principles. In the view of the objective, safety is a matter of how people would find risks acceptable or unacceptable.” Put simply, everything has risk and it becomes unsafe when this risk becomes too much.

Because all people are different from each other, we accept different levels of risk in different situations. Cars are more dangerous than aeroplanes, but we still call some cars and planes safe and others unsafe. Safety, is just one of many attributes of dependability, others include maintainability, availability, reliability and security. Each of these mean something slightly different. For example, a car can be 100% safe whilst also being 100% unreliable; if it can never drive anywhere it can never have a crash, whilst electrical cables with no insulation can be nearly 100% reliable and 100% unsafe as they’ll always carry the electrical charge but they will also always electrocute anyone who happens to touch them.

To record safety we have terminology to describe events with regard to safety in order to categorise, research and learn form them. An event in which someone gets injured but wasn’t meant to we call an accident. A similar event where the person escapes harm by good fortune we call an incident. The circumstances which cause an incident or accident to occur we call a hazard. For a motorsport example, looking back to my earlier Disaster Incubation Theory post, a recovery tractor being on a live circuit is a hazard, Antonio Liuzzi gently tapping the tractor with no damage or injury is an incident, Jules Bianchi suffering a fatal crash by colliding with a tractor is an accident.

In safety engineering hazards are the base unit of management. Safety engineers try to think of all the hazards that are theoretically possible and then work on making systems where these hazards are, if not impossible, at least highly unlikely. Every hazard carries some level of risk, this risk is determined by the severity – how bad an event might be – and the likelihood – how probable it is for a hazard to cause an accident. Average everyday wind is considered low risk because it’s unlikely to cause harm whilst the Earth being struck by an undetected brown dwarf star is also low risk because it’s extremely unlikely to happen even though it would wipe out all life on Earth. Most safety engineering involves identifying the hazards, thinking about what is likely to happen and then figuring out what to do about it.

For a motorsport example we look to Turkey in 2020 where we saw an extremely bad example of safety management. A tractor on track is a hazard, this much we know and have several previous incidents and a severe accident as examples. We know the severity and the likelihood. During qualifying a tractor was on track recovering a stricken car between two of the qualifying sessions whilst the pit lane exit was closed. With complete visibility of a very reliable control point, Michael Masi opened the pit lane for cars to go on track despite knowing there was a hazard and, crucially, NOT having reliable knowledge of whether it was safe to do so.

It was not difficult or unreasonable to keep the pit lane closed for a further few minutes in order to know, with certainty, that the track was clear, “I was assured that the track would be clear” is simply not good enough when something as simple as responding with “Ok. You tell me when the track IS clear, not when you think it will be” will render the hazard irrelevant. We had a similar incident at Imola, also in 2020, with marshals still on track recovering debris when lapped cars were given the order to unlap themselves, resulting in cars travelling at high speed to catch up to the back of the pack behind the safety car. There were further incidents at Mugello and during an F2 race as well not to mention the terrifying moment when Perez narrowly missed two marshals at Monaco in 2019.

These are my biggest concerns within motorsport right now and much greater work is needed to ensure driver and marshal safety. It may seem as if I’m singling out Masi here and in some ways, I am. As race director the buck stopped with him and both 2020 and 2021 had further incidents during the time of his directorship after many egregious mistakes in 2019, I’m sure no one has forgotten Singapore with George Russell on the racing line for minutes before a safety car was called.

I never have to talk about my misgivings regarding Masi again in the present tense, but all the mistakes made have come from ignoring, or at least being ignorant of, measures already in place to maintain safe practices and I worry that more will come. The move towards two different race directors has already resulted in questionable decisions in 2022 on the topic of safety, particularly the decisions in Miami regarding additional energy reduction barriers. I will say however, that the FIA series are not the only ones which I watch and keep a close eye on for safety concerns.

Memories of Murray

“And look at that! Out and colossally that’s Mansell!” These are the words which accompany my earliest conscious memory of Formula One. Whilst my mother insists that when playing with toy cars I always talked about Niki Lauda, and to be fair I still often do, it’s that dramatic moment which sticks out clearly in my mind, not just visually, but audibly.

All sports have their icons. Look to tennis and Federer will instantly spring to mind or perhaps Navratilova if you’re older, football has any number of legends from Eusébio through to Messi and golf too has household names spanning the decades from Arnold Palmer up to the amazing stories which cover the career of Tiger Woods but rarely does a sporting legend and icon never compete within it. Formula One may have it’s history books filled with Fangio, Schumacher, Senna and Hamilton but to these names fans of the sport will always add Murray Walker.

Murray’s father was a motorcycle racer for Norton so that love for racing was in his blood from the very beginning, even so far as becoming a racer himself competing against future World Formula One and Motorcycle Grand Prix Champion John Surtees and later turning to trials riding with some good success but, it was in the commentary box where he truly found his calling.

Starting in 1948, Murray Walker made his first broadcast from the legendary, and oldest continuously staged motorsport event, Shelsley Walsh hillclimb and carried on with various radio and TV commentary roles, primarily for motorcycle events, until during the 1970s when occasional F1 races came calling and finally in 1978, he took over the BBC Formula One commentary full time.

An instant favourite, Murray showed his natural flair for raising the excitement levels when commentating and would soon gain a partner in former World Champion, James Hunt. This partnership would remain for over a decade and cemented them as legends behind the microphone. Calm, but frequently blunt, Hunt and exaggerated and animated Walker didn’t gel together immediately in 1980 but soon became iconic and their double act commentary allowed the now famous ‘Murrayisms’ to really find their home.

Many people, myself included I will admit, often point out mistakes made by David Croft or others in the past such as Jonathan Legard and perhaps we should be more forgiving because beloved Murray was far from infallible. Along with often outlandish similes and word choices, Murray would frequently get things wrong but this was accepted and enjoyed. The excitement levels causing brief moments of confusion were merely part of his charm and never something to decry or correct. “1 Light! 2 Lights! 3 Lights! 4 Lights! 5 Laps!” just one example of our favourite announcer being caught up in the energy of a race start. That energy is what caught my attention as a 6 year old, playing with toy cars and hearing this captivating voice from the television only to look up and see sparks flying in dramatic fashion.

When I think about various moments of racing which stand out in my recollections, Murray is always there. The tumultuous rivalry between Senna and Prost carried the famous “Out! Oh my goodness!” in 1989 only to be followed by “And it’s happened immediately! This is amazing!” the year after. It wasn’t just F1 either as he commentated the dramatic 1992 British Touring Car finale announcing “I’m going for first! Says John Cleland”, deftly smoothing over the obvious middle finger that had just been shown on camera. In 1994, sadly, he was also able to show his ability to carry the utmost professionalism when covering the San Marino Grand Prix. His cry of “Senna!!” still haunts me but it’s his words once the severity of the accident becomes apparent that stand out, maintaining calm and measured speech alongside Jonathan Palmer, simply relaying any news which they received and giving politely simplified description of what was happening on their monitors without excessive detail whilst the TV feed kept footage off the screens. In happier times, however, who can forget the moment that Damon Hill finally clinched the championship, “And I’ve got to stop, because I’ve got a lump in my throat”. Always a friend to Damon, seeing him take the title after watching his legendary father, Graham, race and win clearly meant a lot to Murray.

There are far too many Murrayisms to quote here, and I’m sure you’ve all been reading and contributing your own favourites on social media, but they’re only part of what made Murray special. At his very core, Murray was a fan. A huge fan. He both respected and adored all the drivers which was clear any time an interview was being carried out, always a big smile and a feeling of being starstruck as he talked with people who were quite obviously heroes to him. This is highlighted for me by the way that, even when discussing antics of the truly woeful Riccardo Rosset, he managed to keep his words polite and diplomatic, only for Martin Brundle to roast the driver moments later.

He was incredibly humble too. Upon his retirement from lead commentary in 2001 he was presented with a bottle of champagne, signed by the entire grid, by none other than World Champion Michael Schumacher and, when I watch this moment, I still don’t think that honest, gentle Murray really realised that all of the drivers loved and respected him just as much as he did them and considered him their friend.

Murray Walker was the kind of person every motor racing fan wishes was their father or grandfather and has been central to my love of Formula One throughout my childhood. Formula One has never felt the same to watch since he retired, as if something was missing, and now it’ll never be the same again.

All I can say, to paraphrase your final sign off, is that it always has been a pleasure, and we will enjoy grand prix racing from now on, but probably not quite as much.

Goodbye Murray.

Disaster Incubation Theory

At 9:15am on the morning of 21^st of October 1966 approximately 110,000 cubic metres, nearly 4 million cubic feet, of mining spoil from the local mine slid down the side of the Taff Valley in South Wales. Waves of earth as much as 6 meters, or 20 feet, high travelling up to 50 kilometers or 30 miles per hour smashed into homes and other buildings on a quiet, misty morning.

The full extent of the landslide which crushed the community of Aberfan

To this day the Aberfan Disaster remains one of the most tragic days in British history, whilst 144 people being killed might not seem so terrible in the grand scheme of things when compared to a plane crash or other disaster but of those 144, 116 were children 109 of whom were students aged between 7 and 10 at Pantglas Junior School who, along with their 5 teachers, had begun lessons only 15 minutes earlier. The youngest victim in a nearby home was just 3 months old.

Plaque at Aberfan Memorial Garden after it’s renovation in 2019

Aberfan is one of a few events analysed by Barry Turner when writing his book Man Made Disasters and shows how these horrific events can prove invaluable in preventing such things from happening in the future when studied correctly. The research of Turner led to him putting forward Disaster Incubation Theory and showing how such circumstances can be avoided with the right awareness and common sense when working in safety systems by learning from previous accidents, this is something not just the FIA, but all motorsport governing bodies desperately need to do and learn from…..now.

Now you may be wondering why I would focus on such a terrible event in order to make arguments about motorsport and the reason is simply this – there are a few patterns which are exactly the same in the way they came about and I mean identical, but to get this across we need to take a closer look at each in turn.

The Merthyr Vale colliery was sunk in 1869 and at that time Aberfan was just a couple of cottages and a pub. The first spoil was deposited on the eastern and lower slopes of the valley side which was fine but as mining operations ramped up more space was needed. As you can well imagine to get to the seams of coal there’s a hell of a lot of useless earth and rock in the way which has got to go somewhere. In the early 1910’s the first of seven tips were started on the western slopes high above the village, the now large village with a population in excess of five thousand. By the time of the disaster the seven tips consisted of around two million cubic meters of spoil, this is approximately six times the amount of concrete used in the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre and we all know how devastating that volume of material can be when it’s suddenly not solid anymore.

In 1939 there was a slip at a nearby colliery causing 180,000 tons of material to bury large parts of roads and railways leading to the area. In 1944 part of tip 4 at the Merthyr Vale site slipped and stopped just 150 metres short of the village with aerial photos suggesting this might not even have been the first slip at this site. Tipping stopped and moved to a new location but the new tip 5 also began to slide after a few years in the mid 1950s. In 1963 tip 7 suffered several small slips, they’re labelled small as in some of these cases only a small amount of spoil moved and in others a large amount moved but only a small distance.

Aerial image showing earlier slips with very obvious clarity

Can you see the signs yet?

In 1965, after an incident and yet another South Wales colliery, a memorandum was circulated throughout the mining industry regarding tip stability, advice included limiting tip height, especially on hillsides, ensuring proper drainage so water couldn’t pool at the base of spoil heaps and a few other factors. I’m sure you can see just how useless this was for already existing piles, good luck moving hundreds of thousands of tons to put in a drain or makes sure the base is flat.

In early to mid-1966 tip 7 showed signs of ‘slow creep’, that is it looked to be slowly easing down the hillside and often when workers reached the top they would find small depressions, like sink holes, around five feet deep at the summit.

Here we reach that fateful Friday. Upon reaching the top workers found a depression 3 metres, or 10 feet deep, deep enough that the rails used to haul spoil up for tipping had collapsed into the hole. The usual person in charge was down in the offices busy doing end of week paperwork so the crane driver took charge and sent instructions down to stop tipping operations. In the 15 to 20 minutes it took the messenger to return the hole had sunk a further 3 metres. The men at the top wisely chose to abandon the area at this point; this unquestionably saved their lives.

Over the years the material in the tips had become saturated with water and in the week leading up to the disaster the region had received 10% of its average annual rainfall. In just 7 days. A lone worker who was separated from the others later reported witnessing the top of the tip mound bulge outwards and collapse, like sandcastle hit by a wave sending nearly half a million tons of dirt down the slope, decimating the small mining community.

The rest of that day is a story of tragedy mixed with heroism as rescue workers and the public alike, many with what gardening tools they could grab quickly and some with just their bare hands, attacked the sludge desperately trying to save as many people as possible, a task made unimaginably difficult as destroyed water mains pumped 2 to 3 million gallons of water into the pile. Those areas which were not inundated with water solidified almost immediately rendering rescue nearly impossible. The slip hit at 9:15am, after 11am only bodies were recovered.

Desperate efforts to rescue as many trapped people as possible proved almost futile against the mass of earth

I’m certain most of the younger people watching will have never heard about this, unless they’re fans of The Crown on Netflix and know the harrowing dramatization of Aberfan shown in season three, but I’m equally certain everyone reading has heard of Jules Bianchi and he is why these two stories, whilst completely different in makeup, are virtually identical when examined from a safety engineering perspective.

Before I go any further I must clarify that I am in no way at all suggesting that these events are in any way on the same level, to even contemplate comparing the loss of one racing driver to the loss of 144 people is unconscionable. What is very hard for many is to remove the human element from the equation when examining the causes, mistakes and outcomes of accidents and become detached from the horror that often lies within the details but it’s vitally important to do so to be able to look with complete objectivity.

Ok, so it’s easy to look back at the events of Aberfan and see what was going to happen, hindsight as always is 20:20 but it must also be understood that this was so different a time that this accident was inevitable. Even some 21 years after the end of world war two there was still a very strong and very common spirit of getting on with it and what is now a collectable meme, Keep Calm and Carry On etcetera, truly was the national ideology. Safety was generally an afterthought but not though ignorance or incompetence, that’s just how life was, you don’t get the job done by stopping every five minutes to check if its safe.

What bother’s me is that when you look at the death of Jules Bianchi it’s the people in charge, who absolutely do, or at least should, have safety in mind at all times missed so much. Safety in motorsport has been a constant evolution since the early 1970’s with a few token gestures and attempts before then. This missing of the obvious is made that much worse when you look ‘one of’ the first incidents in this chain of events resulting in the avoidable death of a young driver.

It’s the 6^th of November, 1994 at Suzuka and it’s raining. Today, this race would never have even started but start it did and was ‘at best’ treacherous. By lap 4 no less than 6 drivers had gone off due to aquaplaning with two of them, Hideki Noda (yes, Juju’s dad) and Ukyo Katayama receiving minor injuries. Any sane person would have the race there and then but it continued until on lap 13 Gianni Morbidelli crashed his Footwork heavily at the esses, again due to aquaplaning. During the recovery of his car however Martin Brundle also went off aquaplaning at the same spot; his McLaren bounced off the barriers and struck a marshal, breaking his leg. Quite rightly the race was stopped immediately but I’m sure most of you would agree that it should have been stopped 9 laps earlier. So why do I say this event is particularly bad for the safety decisions made? Well remember the year, 1994.

1994 was a year of hell for injuries in post 70s F1. Not only do we have the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna but there was also many, many other colossal crashes causing injuries, some very severe, for Rubens Barrichello, Karl Wendlinger, Jean Alesi, Pedro Lamy, JJ Lehto, Andrea Montermini and more. For a season of 16 races featuring 14 teams we saw no less than 46 drivers including 14 rookies and numerous pay drivers being drafted in to cover for injured racers. Lotus alone fielded 7 drivers and JJ Lehto and Andrea De Cesaris both drover for two different teams.

Barrichello rolls violently during Friday practice at Imola in 1994. Amazingly he escapes with just a broken arm.

Now, some of the crashes in 1994 can be attributed to revenge effects, another area of study in safety research which I’ll cover in a later article, but whatever the reasons it amazes me with so many incidents happening throughout the year that the responsiveness at Suzuka, the penultimate race, was so lacking. But we’re not done yet.

Sunday at Interlagos, I could probably leave it there to be honest, pick a year at random and you’ve got a 50/50 shot at guessing a wet race; the year in question here however is 2003. Those of you watching who were around for this or have watched it in the time since, will definitely know why I’m talking about it now.

The day started with torrential rain completely flooding the track in places but thankfully, back in 1997, one Charlie Whiting had taken over the role of race director and wisely chose to delay the start. Even with the rain almost over and the track clearing it was still a safety car start and the field trundled around for 8 very long laps, some even pitting for fuel to save a later second stop. The race proceeded as you might expect with small spins and mishaps until lap 18 when a crash at turn 1 caused the second safety car, Justin Wilson had already spun off at curva do sol but not much was made of this as he was in a Minardi, harsh perhaps but given that years Minardi, probably fair.

That is until you consider however that turn 3 had deficient drainage, some even thought it blocked or damaged, leading to a veritable river flowing down the hill and straight across the track. Wilson was merely first as no one was immune to the torrent of water, no one. Montoya went off on lap 25 as the first big hit only for Antonio Pizzonia to follow him heavily, bouncing into the stricken Williams. Two laps later the rainmaster himself, Michael Schumacher, went sliding off at the same place bringing us to the linking moment. As Schuey goes off with exactly zero control over the car we see marshals diving over barriers to get out of the firing line. The rest of the race had safety cars and further incidents, many again at turn 3 and the famously huge shunt for Alonso hitting the wheel of Webber but thankfully, injuries were escaped.

Schumacher flying helplessly towards multiple marshals who thankfully were wide awake and scattered before impact

From Brazil we jump ahead and across the Atlantic to the Nurburgring for the European Grand Prix of 2007. Most people remember this race for the god tier, bankrupt the house gamble played by the Spyker team pitting Marcus Winkelhock for full wets at the end of the formation lap as gentle rain started. After just a few corners the rain was biblical, cars could barely make it around the first lap to get back to the pits for wet boots with Kimi Raikkonen sliding helplessly past the pit entrance and having to tip toe around another lap on slicks, honestly Kimi deserved that year’s title just for getting back to the pits it was so bad.

But pit they all did and the race continued but not for long, the rain got heavier and heavier until on lap 3 everything went in the bin. Button crashed into turn 1 quickly followed by Hamilton, Rosberg, Sutil and Speed. As Rosberg is sliding off you can see a tractor unit in already moving into the danger zone for recovery and button is hanging off the catch fence after exiting his car all whilst the area is a shooting gallery. It wasn’t until the 5^th car joined the heap, the Super Aguri of Anthony Davidson, that the safety car came out and awaited the leader just before turn 1. When you watch the footage, you see that Bernd Maylander was very much aware of the situation as he sees the car of Liuzzi coming towards them backwards and accelerates hard to avoid a collision. After narrowly missing the safety car the Toro Rosso slides into the gravel and actually hits a recovery tractor. Ok, it was a very gentle tap I’ll grant you but it IS contact and the ‘what if’s from that are huge. At this point the race was red flagged and did continue safely after a long delay.

Jenson Button clings to the catch fence as more cars come flying into the gravel

Those ‘what if’ worries came back to haunt everyone 7 years later.

The 2014 Japanese Grand Prix on October 5^th was under threat before it even started. The category 4 Typhoon Phanfone was due to make landfall on the day of the race with it’s northern edge predicted to deluge the track and bring very high wind speeds. Of all people it was Bernie Ecclestone, the man who showed no or at least very little focus for safety in the past, who raised the idea of an earlier start time so as to be concluded before the typhoon arrived and was of course backed by Charlie Whiting who said the start should be moved and warned he would not permit a race start unless it was safe to do so. Somehow, the circuit owners were able to overrule this and refused requests to start the race two hours earlier. How the race director and sport owner can be overruled by the track owner is beyond me and needs more examination by people with more knowledge of the hierarchy and how it works.

The race went ahead but after a few minor incidents and repeated complaints from drivers about the conditions it was red flagged after just two laps. 20 minutes later the race restarted behind the safety car and, once racing speeds were reached, was surprisingly and impressively clean until heavy rain began again on lap 36. Multiple drivers went off wide at various corners as conditions deteriorated until lap 42 when Adrian Sutil aquaplaned off into the barriers at the Dunlop Curve, turn 7. A tractor came out to retrieve the broken car under double waved yellow flags but as it was poised to leave the confines of the circuit the Marussia of Jules Bianchi left the track at 132 miles per hour.

After likely aquaplaning on the same patch of standing water as Sutil, Bianchi was a complete passenger. His car went under the recovery vehicle with enough energy to lift the 4 or more ton tractor a meter off the ground and shear the roll hoop structure clean off the car, the roll hoop crash structure is designed to take a vertical impact force of 3 tons, not a lateral one.

The crash of Jules was truly horrific, as the roll hoop and airbox offered almost no resistance at all his helmet made direct contact with the solid steel of the tractor. No helmet on earth was going to save him, even the halo would have been insufficient protection. Put simply nothing in motorsport is, or can be, designed to withstand this kind of impact.

One other point to this whole event which makes me particularly angry is that Bianchi had to be transported to hospital in an ambulance by road as the weather was too bad for the medical helicopter to fly. Availability of an air ambulance has been a mandatory regulation for all race events and test sessions since the needless death of Elio De Angelis in 1986. 28 years of a very simple regulation and still somehow, they got it wrong and on top of this the FIA didn’t even acknowledge that it took 37 minutes longer by road to reach the necessary medical care until over a month later.

Jules Bianchi remained unconscious from the moment of the crash, some of this time in an artificially induced coma, but despite the best possible healthcare he passed away on July 17^th 2015, 9 months after the race in Japan. He was 25.

So why talk about two very different tragic events? Put simply, because neither one should have happened. There were so many repeated warning signs for literal decades leading up to the incidents themselves that I’m sure many of you are in near shock at the apparent blindness of those involved. This is the very core of disaster incubation theory, the risk of accident increasing over potentially long periods of time where the risk is unrecognised. Disaster incubation scenarios can be understood through the information involved and the problems with it, information being all the relevant data for a case be that personnel, regulations, operating procedures, environmental factors, potential outcomes and so on, far too many things to list here but this gives you the general idea.

Turner identifies the problems in four categories:

Completely unknown information (these are rare).
Prior information is noted but not fully appreciated.
Prior information is not correctly assembled e.g. because it drowns in other information, or is distributed among several organisations, or is withheld.
Prior information does not fit existing models or categories.

Looking at these it’s very easy to classify various accidents to them by way of what happened, Aberfan is clearly the second option with prior information about slips being noted but no one really understanding what could happen, Jules is more difficult but still fits into category 2. Aberfan might be able to have some small reduction in responsibility due to the completely different attitudes and protocols of the time, the FIA has no such luxury. Martin Brundle, personally involved in one of the preceding incidents, repeatedly stated about his worry that one day this would happen. Here is just one example of from Hockenheim in 1998.

Not only do we have what are clear and obvious warning signs, we have a driver who was involved openly stating “This is going to happen” and one of the precursor events where it literally happens. There are no ifs or buts here, none, it doesn’t matter if it was a tiny and slow touch, the fact remains that an F1 car left the track and struck a recovery vehicle due to wet conditions 7 years before Jules Bianchi did along with two other close calls and 20 years of being told it would happen.

Personally, I consider this completely unforgivable and when the issue of the helicopter is considered as well, there should have been an investigation for criminal negligence carried out but if getting into legal stuff, perhaps that’s a topic for Dornie one day.

There is a very specific reason I’ve gone on for so long and in so much detail about these events and it’s a very simple one – I believe it’s happening again.

Sausage kerbs – Also known as ‘turtles’ in many USA based series.

Last year Sean Gelael, driving for the DAMS team in Formula 2, suffered fractured vertebrae after hitting the large kerbs at the final chicane at Catalunya. The stiffness of such race cars is so extreme that when coming down from any kind of airtime is seriously painful and might as well be just landing on your coccyx on a hardwood floor. “But surely that’s just a freak one-off occurrence?” some people might say and those people would be A: wrong and B: show the same attitude to safety that caused the previous events.

EDIT: After increasing frequency of these incidents I’ve carried out even deeper research into how often and how early such kerbs have caused accidents in the past and also to re-evaluate incidents I may have overlooked, the results add further weight to my arguments here:

Rubens Barrichello, Imola 1994 – arguably the first major incident resulting in a broken arm and concussion. Not technically a sausage kerb, but a very high kerb type which was removed from use after this.
Giancarlo Fisichella, Singapore 2008 – no injury but crash as direct result of kerb.
Kamui Kobayashi, Singapore 2011 – the same kerb, again no injury.
Multiple NASCAR drivers, Charlotte Roval 2018 – incidents not caused by the kerbs but impacts severely worsened. No injuries.

Now we move on to the more worrying incidents. Let’s jump back to Spa-Francorchamps in 2014 and practice for the GP3 series in underway on a Friday.

After losing the rear from touching the grass on the exit of Blanchimont, Konstantin Tereschenko takes flight from the sausage kerb destroying the car as it lands sideways and rolls, also catching fire. Thankfully he escaped unharmed but a scary moment I’m sure you’ll agree. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-UissIDSxo

Just 2 weeks later the inaugural Formula E race took place on the street of Beijing and proved how competitive an all-electric series can be but even at these lower speeds on a smaller track, they also showed that dangerous crashes can still happen. On the last lap Nick Heidfeld Had the run on Nico Prost into the final corner and went for the move but Nico didn’t feel like being overtaken and turned in causing a collision and also wrecking the steering for Heidfeld, spinning his car sideways after which it slid across a sausage kerb and got launched. The dramatic mid rolls were undoubtedly a result of hitting the tecpro barriers a few feet in the air instead of a flat side-on impact. No one was hurt which is the good news but had there been another car mid-corner, things could have been very nasty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG1VPss4LKI

Coming forward in time we get to the F3 Macau GP of 2018. On lap 4, mistakenly shown yellow flags cause many cars to slow sharply leaving each car with less and less time to react and Sophia Floersch had none at all. She contacted the rear of Jehan Daruvala’s car, wrecking the steering and suspension and turning the car 180 degrees. As the rear of the car hit the sausage kerb on the inside of the corner it jumped upwards, clipping the car of Sho Tsuboi and smashed, top first into a photographer’s booth. Floersch suffered a spinal fracture and was hospitalised along with Tsuboi, two photographers and a marshal, all with minor injuries. How no one was killed is pure luck and borders on a miracle, thankfully all have made full recoveries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=445YsTL9fOs

Finally, we come to Monza in 2019 during the weekends first Formula 3 race. Alex Peroni driving for Campos hits what is quite possibly the dumbest place for a kerb ever, two thirds of the way around Parabolica on the outside – you know, the place everyone goes if they get some understeer mid corner or get pushed wide battling. I can only assume that repeated energy input from wheels over the course of the many practice and qualifying sessions loosened the fixings hold the kerb in place causing it to raise slightly and unfortunately the leading edge of the cars floor and skid plank hit this raised end. His car was launched into the air at high speed and somersaulted through the air for 87 metres before landing, cockpit first on the barriers. The halo undoubtedly saved his life at the point of impact, I won’t get into halo debates here but it’s pretty certain for me. After safety crews righted the car he was able to walk away but upon medical examination was found to have spinal fractures and missed the rest of the season but has since recovered fully. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlXDJY3e6KY

So, can you see the patterns of both Aberfan and Jules Bianchi being repeated again? I certainly can and it leaves me wondering what it’s going to take until changes happen.

So far, we have 3 out of 4 drivers broken backs and one driver, one marshal and two photographers requiring hospital treatment for minor injuries. Where is the tipping point? Is it when a driver suffers spinal fracture severe enough to cause paralysis or death? Is it when a car lands directly on top of a marshal or other driver killing them? The same as Martin Brundle over 20 years ago I am telling you now, this IS going to happen and when it does many will ask ‘Why didn’t we see the risk of this happening?’. Well I will tell you why, it’s because those involved in safety in governing bodies of many forms of motorsport, not just the FIA, focus too heavily on specific elements of it. It seems to me that there is always a different group for each area, one for cars, one for tracks, one for marshalling and so on with no one overseeing safety as a whole, as a system. It’s those who study and research safety in and of itself who combine the efforts of the others to close the door through which disaster creeps and motorsport seems painfully lacking in this area.

People who manage and oversee safety as its own focus are there to be proactive, to evaluate minor incidents as they happen and extrapolate the potential worsening a situation might have. This has been the biggest problem with the FIA specifically for too long, always reacting (and reacting very, very slowly) to problems instead of preventing things from becoming a problem in the first place.

No one needs to die after flying from a kerb to enact change but I fear that, as before, nothing will happen until someone does.

How does this change? I don’t know, I’m not employed by the FIA, I don’t have Jean Todt’s phone number and I doubt they would listen to me but maybe, just maybe, if this helps to make you look at incidents another way and see repeating patterns we can be vocal enough that teams might hear it and help it to filter upwards to those who can make a difference.

Update since writing:

Since putting this article together, there have been a further TWO drivers suffering spinal fractures as a direct result of sausage kerbs – Christan Wier in US F4 and Abbie Eaton in W Series.

That’s now a total of five (yes 5!) avoidable spinal injuries because of these moronic track limit solutions.

Further Update:

At Misano in April of 2022, Oleksandr Partyshev was very lucky to escape serious injury after another sausage kerb launching incident but did suffer pain in his back.

At Monza in October of 2021, Dino Beganovic and David Vidales were both lucky to escape unhurt after an extremely close call caused by a sausage kerb.

In 2021 Santiago Ramos suffered fractured vertebrae at Misano in F4.

At Silverstone in July 2022, Roy Nissany had his life unquestionably saved by the halo after the car of Dennis Hauger was launched directly into the side of his cockpit opening by yet another unnecessary sausage kerb. Without the kerb, it would have been direct head contact.

Further, Further Update:

At Imola April 23rd 2023, in Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine RPM Team driver Adam Fitzgerald suffers a broken spine after being launched over a sausage kerb.

Rating The Incidents

The Incidents

Aesthetically, it’s not the worst option

It’s not made from carbon fibre

It didn’t save Tadasuke Makino

It does nothing in a rollover

It would not have saved Jules Bianchi

Update since writing:

Further Update:

Further, Further Update:

Rolling Tally: 7 Spinal Fractures