The F1 thread

Brio

I'm highly impressed by the fence. Probably designed with the intention of keeping low flying wheels out of the crowd I suspect that impact was right at the top of what it could be expected to handle.

rlw

https://thumbsnap.com/sc/osYovoZo.jpg

DesVegas

rlw said:

https://thumbsnap.com/sc/osYovoZo.jpg

They're not really supposed to do that 

Cols

I see we’re back to that old chestnut of “a Formula One car produces so much downforce it could drive upside down”?

chillidoggy

I strongly suspect a change of underdungers was on for Zhou.

TeleMaster

skullfunkerry said:

sinbaadi said:

Fucking hell, that's terrifying.

Yea and there's a high chance of shrapnel coming through the fence too. 

sinbaadi

stickyfiddle said:

The top of the roll hoop looks to have been completely shredded as it scraped along the ground. It's pretty clear without the halo things would have been very different

0

Are roll hoops no longer required to be as robust as in the pre-halo days?

I definitely think halo is a good thing, but I do wonder if we are always comparing like-for-like.  The number of lives that halo has allegedly saved since its implementation, in F1 alone, far exceeds the number of deaths that we might expect in the same period, pre halo.  Something doesn't add up.

skullfunkerry

TeleMaster said:

skullfunkerry said:

sinbaadi said:

Fucking hell, that's terrifying.

Yea and there's a high chance of shrapnel coming through the fence too. 

The guy that posted that video also had a thread on Twitter with some more photos, and in one of them he's holding a few carbon fibre shards that came into the grandstand.

Dontgiveupyourdayjob

Rumours that Spa might be getting ditched from the 2023 Calendar:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/formula-1/belgian-french-grands-prix-not-27393937?fbclid=IwAR2rc7YZ7vEJPUDO8g0zoZhl_VMeheVepqZ6i1Z-h9J6ohrI0TcD_35kk04

Not arsed about losing Paul Ricard, but would be terrible if Spa was taken off the calendar. Especially as I'm planning on going to see a race abroad next year, and that one's top of my list!

stickyfiddle

@sinbaadi i don’t think the rollover t3sts have changed, but I don’t think they ever included “scraping along the tarmac upside down at 150mph” in the tests. I’m sure they’ll look at it in a lot of detail, including whether to keep accepting carbon blade style roll protection and instead mandate a full hoop made titanium to match the halo.

@dontgiveupyourdayjob my guess is the Spa talk is just more shit stirring during negotiations. I hope so.

sinbaadi

stickyfiddle said:

@sinbaadi i don’t think the rollover t3sts have changed, but I don’t think they ever included “scraping along the tarmac upside down at 150mph” in the tests. I’m sure they’ll look at it in a lot of detail, including whether to keep accepting carbon blade style roll protection and instead mandate a full hoop made titanium to match the halo.

@dontgiveupyourdayjob my guess is the Spa talk is just more shit stirring during negotiations. I hope so.

We've seen big hits and cars upside down at those speeds before, Webber had a big one at Valencia, but the difference is that Zhou's "hoop" seems to immediately crumble despite it not being a massive initial impact, and you have a big wide stable contact surface siding across the tarmac, which then means the car is less likely to right itself.  Had the blade not immediately failed the car might have rolled to the point of the tyres grabbing the tarmac again and then the car might have rolled/flipped, but it would have slowed down a lot more.
I know cars are wider than in the V8 era but there are quite a few examples of cars being upside down that do right themselves rather than siding with such stability.

I just think it's interesting, the old "roll protection" never looked as fragile as it does here.

stickyfiddle

We've seen cars upside down but not sliding across the ground like that - usually a brief knock while still rotating

fretmeister

To me it looked like the roll over took the impact as it is supposed to, but then was ground off along the tarmac like a giant sanding belt.

I don't think I've ever seen a similar crash in over 30 years of watching.

sinbaadi

It immediately fails, this is pretty much acknowledged widely, there is no progressive erosion of it, the car is sliding on the halo in moments after the initial touch and that's why it stays inverted.  The reason that this doesn't look like other flip/roll crashes, of which there are loads, is for that very reason. 

stickyfiddle

I don't disagree. I assume the tests they use are basically for a force pushing down on the roll hoop (assuming the car is upright). This single-post style roll bar may have failed because the initial impact was at more of a sideways angle. 

Imagine a kitchen roll tube - it's difficult to compress it if you just push on the end, but relatively easy to fold it in half if you hold the base firmly and push sideways at the top. Any single-blade style hoop is going to be relatively weaker than a full hoop for the same vertical load-bearing strength. 

Without having done any further reading as to the existing tests and requirements I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened here.

danishbacon

I wonder if tech talk at next race will cover the event. 

RiftAmps

danishbacon said:

I wonder if tech talk at next race will cover the event. 

From Autosport - https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/alfa-romeo-roll-hoop-likely-focus-of-zhou-f1-crash-investigation/10333012/

It’s important to clarify that the design used by Alfa Romeo has passed the requisite crash tests imposed by the FIA.

Roll hoop test

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

The requirements of the primary roll over structure are to sustain loads equivalent to 60kN laterally, 70kN longitudinally and 105kN vertically. All teams have to go through the crash tests on this before their cars are allowed on track.

One of the issues with Zhou’s incident is it’s a compound scenario of multiple and different impacts.

The roll structure has undergone a significant load in the vertical direction, as the car landed upside down. Then that was followed by a continuous longitudinal load as it scraped along the track.

You could argue, therefore, that it did its job completely in the first instance, with the nature of the accident then shifting more to reliance on the halo

markr76

Also every chassis that the teams make is crash tested.  Not just the first one made. If it was just the first one made it could cause problems as the teams are always looking to cut the weight of things. 

sinbaadi

markr76 said:

Also every chassis that the teams make is crash tested.  Not just the first one made. If it was just the first one made it could cause problems as the teams are always looking to cut the weight of things. 

Pretty sure they only load test every tub, many things that function in crash tests are destroyed in the process.  Surely scrutineering etc is the method to ensure that only homologated components are used.  If every roll structure had to be crash tested because they thought teams might try to save weight, we'd never see a completed car.

markr76

sinbaadi said:

markr76 said:

Also every chassis that the teams make is crash tested.  Not just the first one made. If it was just the first one made it could cause problems as the teams are always looking to cut the weight of things. 

Pretty sure they only load test every tub, many things that function in crash tests are destroyed in the process.  Surely scrutineering etc is the method to ensure that only homologated components are used.  If every roll structure had to be crash tested because they thought teams might try to save weight, we'd never see a completed car.

Load test/crash test. We just refer to it as a crash test at work. So sorry if I was being vague. 

I’ve seen quite a few smashes over the years. You’d be surprised how much can be fixed/saved. 
On the majority of the cars the roll hoop isn’t actually part of the chassis. It’s separate. Bonded on to the chassis. So it can be replaced if needed. Which isn’t a quick fix you can do at the track. 

There are some items on the car like the nose. Or Rear impact structure (RIS) Once that’s crash tested and it passes. The parts can be made to the same spec without being tested again. 

If the parts in question have a design change then they have to be re tested. Any updates/changes to the car, the FIA are informed. 

But failing a crash test isn’t as big a problem as it might sound. From what I heard, Redbull didn’t pass all their crash tests until after pre season testing! That’s cutting it close!
 The idea is to only just pass the test. If you pass to easily. That means you’ve been too conservative and the car probably weights a lot more than it needs to.