Henry Surtees, Felipe Massa and the testing of fighter jet canopies

Dangers of open cockpit racing still high on the agenda

Today marks the second anniversary of the death of Henry Surtees, son of John Surtees. Henry tragically lost his life at Brands Hatch in 2009 during a Formula 2 race, after a loose wheel hit his helmet whilst at full racing speed.

In a seemingly freakish coincidence, Felipe Massa suffered a similar accident a week later at the Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying session, when a spring fell off Rubens Barrichello’s car, and hit Massa on the head at 250kph. Felipe survived his accident, but the sport as a whole took a long hard look at itself, perhaps in a similar way after the tragic events of Imola 1994.

There are many ideas as to how open cockpit racing could be made safer. Martin Porter wrote an excellent article exploring these not long after Felipe and Henry’s crash in 2009. However many of the ideas aren’t entirely practical, or have too many draw backs to be viable making it a difficult task to tackle.

Although perhaps we don’t talk about Henry’s and Felipe’s crash with the same concern as we did two years ago, work is constantly going on behind the scenes by the FIA to make sure safety remains a priority in Formula 1, and other forms of motorsport.

FIA Institute Jet Canopy Test from FIA Institute on Vimeo.

This recently released video shows two types of canopies being tested against the force of a Formula 1 wheel, propelled at 140mph. The results are staggering. I would never have guessed the fight jet canopy could withstand such incredible forces.

The findings have been passed onto the Technical Working Group - a body of clever people from the Formula 1 teams who come up with ideas for new regulations and initiatives in F1.

Although closed cockpits with canopies might not be an ideal solution to the risk driver’s face, it’s comforting to know the FIA take their safety very seriously, and are trying out new ideas no matter how wild they seem.

Posted by James Wilson. - Follow him on twitter @enterf1.

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