Damas Wrote:
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> Am right in remembering that Sauber used to bond
> the two halves of their tub in a diffent direction
> to the rest? Can somebody confirm this?
>
> I remember around this time that one of the teams
> instead of bonding two halves, split front to
> rear, formed the top and bottom of the chassis and
> then bonded this. Just thinking this could have
> been the reason for the rollbar failure on Diniz's
> Sauber as it may have been a week point in the
> direction of the force being implyied during the
> roll?
Split top and bottom is the norm. Pretty sure the roll bars are still a separate part bonded to the top of the chassis, definately was in years past. A similar incident to the Diniz one was a guy called Wouter van Eeuwijk in Germany F3 the same year, ripped the roll bar clean off and left him paralyzed from the neck down. F3 now requires the top of the chassis to be above the drivers helmet, I don't think F1 has the same rule but they increased the side load test for the roll bar.
The gravel traps used to be REALLY effective in '93 and before when they were furrowed, the cars rarely even got to the tire walls. FIA took the furrows out after Warwick flipped at Hockenheim (big overreaction IMO). After that the cars tended to skip over top of the gravel.
The thing about the pavement is it doesn't actually stop the cars: all it does is give the driver more time to stop the car. If he's lost the front wing, brakes, a wheel, etc he's in big trouble.