An artist’s rendering of what a Formula One car might look like with a closed cockpit.Rarely has a safety issue so divided people within a sporting series as the current debate about whether Formula One cars should have closed cockpits.
In a style of auto racing in which the driver’s head has always been visible, the subject is the latest, and perhaps last, area of driver safety that has met with resistance. It has raised questions like few other safety issues — except perhaps the adoption of seatbelts in the late 1950s.
The debate started in earnest after two drivers died from head injuries over the summer, one in Formula One and the other in the IndyCar series. The French Formula One driver Jules Bianchi, 25, died nine months after suffering severe head injuries when his car struck a crane at the Japanese Grand Prix. Justin Wilson, 37, a former Formula One driver from Britain, died a day after he was hit in the head by the nose of another car in an accident in the United States in August.
With all the safety progress made on cars and track design and with body gear such as a device that holds a driver’s head and neck secure from sudden lateral forces in an accident, the open cockpit, which leaves the head exposed, remains the biggest threat to the lives of drivers.
In one of the lower series in 2009, Henry Surtees, 18, the son of the former Formula One world champion John Surtees, died when he was struck in the head by a wheel that had come loose from another car. In IndyCar in 2011, Dan Wheldon was killed when he crashed and his head hit a fence pole.
The last driver to die in Formula One before Bianchi was Ayrton Senna, who was killed in an accident at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994. In the crash, a piece of Senna’s front wheel suspension pierced his helmet and entered his skull. After his death, Formula One raised the cockpit in cars to protect a driver’s head.
Now, however, there is a more radical suggestion: use a canopy over the driver, like in a fighter jet. But this idea has had mixed reviews.
Full article here.So what do we think?
I like the artist's render but do we think this could happen any time soon?