F1 1970s: part 3- Safety

Here, I talk about the various safety features introduced this decade

Safety Car
It was first used in Formula One at the 1973 Canadian Grand Prix. Its called upon when the conditions are deemed too dangerous to drive. Bernd Maylander is the current driver of the Safety Car. In order t indicate that the safety car has been called, a board with letters SC is put along with the yellow flags. It generally joins ahead of the leader of the race, but there have been instances where it has lead to confusions, one primary example being the inaugural SC race itself, wherein the race winner was decided hours after the race had completed.

©http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/af164/EB_Chris/Misc%20Racing/1973SafetyCar.jpg




Repercussions: The entire field gets bunched up behind the SC, much to the fan’s delight as it increases the excitement in the race, but it is always disadvantageous to those that have built a strong gap to the one behind as all the hard work ends up being nothing. It can be considered synonymous to a coin though, as sometimes it helps a driver and sometimes is a disadvantage to the driver.

Jackie Stewart
One might wonder… “Is this a safety device or safety feature?” Nope, it is neither. It is Formula One Great and triple world champion Jackie Stewart. As per the Formula 1 website, during his time, the chances of getting killed were 2/3rds over a 5 year period of racing. He became one of the forerunners in pushing towards heightened safety standards, with him even saying once that he would like to be remembered for his work in upgrading safety. With initial opposition in the late 60s, he generally got his voice to be heard, and this lead to what safety is today over time.


 ©http://www.formula1.com/wi/597x478/manual/gallery_image_main_127_3.jpg

Track safety
Many regulations with regards to track safety were introduced during this time, right from double crash barriers, pre- race circuit inspections, minimum height grass verges, straw bales being banned, wall separation between track and pit lane to a minimum distance of 3 metres between spectators and the outer fence in 1970. By 1974, safety walls around the circuit became mandatory, followed by marshals and medical service personnel (with proper Prior training) getting mandated the following year. Service roads were also to be provided for ease in transport.


© formula1.com

Cockpit


Cockpits were needed to be designed such that the driver could escape out within 5 seconds in the event of a crash/ incident. A 6 point safety harness (2 shoulder straps, with 2 belts between the legs through which another 2 straps pass through) for the driver was made compulsory in 1972. A more prominently placed and better fire extinguisher was to be present by the decade end along with the implementation of safety structures around the dashboard and pedals.


Image shows a 5 point harness : .

©http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lotus_22_inside_detail.jpg


Overtaking Code of Conduct (©http://www.f1pulse.com/schumster/insights/201004232/f1-overtaking-code-of-conduct)

In order to make overtaking more safe, the following rules were introduced:
a) A car that is alone on the track can use the entire width of the track, however, as soon as it is caught by a car that is about to lap it, the driver must allow the faster car to go through at the first available opening. If for some reason the driver that has been caught up is unable to make full use of the rear mirrors, the flag marshals will wave the blue flag, to indicate that the faster wants to overtake. A driver that chooses to ignore the blue flag would be reported to the Stewards.
b) According to the situation, a driver can overtake the car in front of him, either from the right side or the left side. However, moves that could possibly obstruct other drivers, like the change of direction more than once to defend a position, deliberately squeezing the car beyond the edge of the track or any other unusual change of direction are strictly forbidden. Any driver found guilty of using such a method of driving would be reported to the Stewards.
c) The drivers should use the track at all times. To avoid any confusion:
i) The edges of the track are marked with white lines and are considered to be a part of the track; however, the kerbs are not a part of the track.
ii) The driver will be considered to have left the track if no part of his car remains in contact with the track.
In a situation where the driver goes off the track, and without prejudice to point d below, he may rejoin, only when it is safe and without gaining any advantage.
d) Drivers committing serious mistakes repeatedly or seem to have a problem with keeping the car on the track would be reported to the Stewards and could result in penalties up to and including the exclusion of the driver in question.
At any given time during the season, the driver is expected to follow these rules. Any driver who deliberately appears to break any of these rules to gain advantage at any stage in the race or the season could be penalised by the sport’s governing body.


Note: Super licenses were made mandatory in 1978 in order to drive in F1.

F1 1970s: part 2- Tracks

There were very long tracks in use until the mid- 70s with circuit extending almost up to 10 miles in length, hence leading to long races with lesser safety due to parts of the track being inaccessible by medical or safety personnel. With the increased number of deaths in first half of the decade, several circuits were either axed from the calendar or were modified to make them much smaller.                  One such circuit was the circuit de Charade (on the right) which extended to 8 kms in length as its facilities were available at a tough to access mountainside. It was touted as a very good circuit, but now it has been reduced to below 4 kms and is no more availble on the current F1 calendar. 

© http://www.strikeengine.com/technical_information/circuits-de-charade.jpg

 Spa- Francorchamps: This is another circuit which extended to an imposing 14 kms. Originally 15 kms in length it was reduced to 14kms prior to this decade, and was further reduced to 7kms (shown on right side) by 1979 due to the extremem high average speeds which were leading to lot of fatal accidents (in F1 as well as outside F1).

© http://www.espnf1.com/PICTURES/CMS/4500/4567.jpg              
© http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/Spa-Francorchamps_of_Belgium.svg/260px-Spa-Francorchamps_of_Belgium.svg.png

Nurburgring: The legendary Nordschleife was softened with the bumps being flattened out after driver complaints in 1970. The circuit was made straighter but still staying at a long 22kms in length, safety was always at risk. After Niki Lauda's near fatal accident in 1976, the circuit was axed in favor of Hockenheimring. Subsequently, the southern nurburgring circuit Sudschleife has been in use and has undergone changes and been quite shorter than the Northern circuit that was in use as is evident on the right side of below diagram. 

© http://home.swipnet.se/~w-32546/nbring/images/Karta2.gif                  © http://ff1gp.com/cache/entity-images/2010-circuits-nurburgring-png-526.png

Replacement Circuits: With concerns being raised about the long, sometimes dangerous and inaccessible circuits, newer shorter circuits were added in as replacements in F1 such as the Paul Ricard (left), Zolder circuit (middle) and the afore mentioned Hockenheimring circuit (right). Among these three, only a shortened version of Hockenheim is in use for F1 races now.

a) © http://www.gdecarli.it/Circuiti/FRA/FRA%20Paul%20Ricard%201986%20A.gif

b) © http://www.juratek.com/UserFiles/Image/Circuit-Zolder-Large.jpg

c) © http://www.espnf1.com/PICTURES/CMS/4500/4555.jpg

F1 1970s: part 1- The Car

Special thanks to www.Formula1.com, Google  and wikipedia for all helpful information.

This decade didn’t have numerous developments in the car, but the most significant and far- reaching change was in downforce which brought in drastic reduction in lap times by the end of season. The engine specs were mandated with 1500 cc compressed engines and 3000cc non-compressed engines being the maximum allowed. The minimum car weight limits increased from 530 kg to about 575 kg by the middle of the decade.

The limitation on wing and other down force elements size was introduced at the start of the decade.  

Ground Effect

Though wings were introduced in the earlier decade after success by the Chaparral team in the Can- Am series, the concept of ground effect hadn’t been understood. Ground effect not only increased the straight line speeds but increased the cornering speeds too. It has also increased the emphasis on setup as small changes create a larger effect on the balance and hence handling of the car.

By the late- 1970's, Colin Chapman from Lotus introduced concept of ground effect in F1 with the inverted aerofoil in their cars which lead to large increase in speed (though arguably pioneered in Chaparral 2J as early as 1970 for racing).

Note: Ground Effect is similar to the principle (Bernoullis principle) used by planes to rise up in the air, except that in this case the car sticks to the ground due to a suction force that is developed between the car and ground (due to increased air acceleration as the ground moves backwards metaphorically, and lowered air pressure). This leads to the ability of the car to drive upside down at high speeds theoretically.

Brabham bt46b (© http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/12/2011/11/bt46b_1.jpg)

Brabham went a step ahead by introducing a fan to increase the down force but this race winning element was banned by the end of the race as it was considered a movable element (akin to the banned movable wings).

The airbox (As seen in below picture) on top was banned.

The Turbo Era
While Supercharged engines were introduced in the 1970s, it didnt really pick off until Renault joined F1 as an engine supplier in the 1977 season and came in with the Gordini V6 Turbo. It was not all a smooth transition due to the resultant Turbo Lag. It was not until the end of the 1979 season, that the full impact of turbo engines were realised with the Williams winning some races towards latter half of season.

© http://members.fortunecity.com/alicat1/095tf1f.jpg

Note: Turbo Lag is the time taken to change speed efficiently in response to a throttle change.

Fuel Tanks

The now predominant saftey fuel cells were introduced in 1970 followed by safety foam presence in fuel tanks with minimum thickness of magnesium increasing to 3mm.

Slick Tyres
Slick tyres were introduced this decade, taking over the road grooved tyres that were being used earlier. The advantage being that traction increases a lot with the increased contact with road. The disadvantage being it becomes very difficult tyre to drive with in damper conditions.

© http://www.grandprix.com/jpeg/bc/Hill-G_68_monaco_01_bc.jpg / http://userdisk.webry.biglobe.ne.jp/006/305/30/1/1978_jps_mkiv_lotus_79.jpg

The image on the left depicts Graham Hill's Lotus in 1968 with grooved tyres (shown in red) and the right image depicts a 1978 Lotus with slick tyres (shown in blue).