Safety precautions

[grant1972]

I was wondering if there has been an accident in formula one racing that cause the safety standard to be look at. Kind of like after Earnhardt senior died in nascar.

[saubryn]

There was a massive investigation after Ayrton Senna died back in 1994 - the same weekend Ratzenberger died, and the same season there were problems with a fuel fire, and if I remember rightly a tire coming loose in a crash and rolling at speed towards the crowd.

Since then there have been minor accidents, but no fatalities thankfully.

[diggyj]

After every race where there has been an incident, safety standards are looked at. A few years ago after cars rolled numerous times in the gravel traps, FIA introduced run off areas to limit cars rolling when involved in an incident. The number of gravel traps have been reduced dramatically on F1 circuits.

They have also introduced tethers that are attached to the tires to prevent them from going into the crowd or rolling away. These however still don't function prpoerly as I have seen incindents recently where drivers involved in accidents have had there tires get ripped off and roll away. I think the tethers jobs is also to take the inital impact and if it is ripped of the force of a flying wheel is greatly reduced.