Why Race Cars Don’t Have Airbags

(upbeat synth music) - Racing is the most dangerous sport in the world. The probability of having an accident is very high and every accident has the potential to be fatal. Yes, the microphone is here now. But

race

car safety has come a long way since the beginning of racing. Recently, F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen escaped an accident in which he experienced 47 g. That's crazy. Do you know how many g we

have

here on Earth? A g. But even with the last 100 years of innovations, drivers are still in great danger. So why don't racing

cars

have

airbags

? In this video, we'll look at how safety features were innovated on racing

cars

, from the roll cage to the helmet, and even something as small as the rearview mirror.

We'll look at why those features are necessary in World Rally Championship, Formula One and NASCAR racing, and how these features have made their way into the cars we drive today. When auto racing began, safety was basically non-existent. The cars were unreliable, open-cockpit missiles, running on primitive technology and thin tires. Most of the effort went into making cars faster and virtually no effort went into making them safer. Racing was considered a calculated risk for drivers and death was an unspoken and very real possibility. Every

race

could be the last. In fact, the most dangerous sport has made everyday life much safer for all people around the world.

In fact, we can thank innovations in racing for almost all of the safety features we have in our cars today. All it took was a bunch of horrible accidents for us to learn. Rearview mirrors are crucial for driving defensively and being aware of your surroundings. The first known case of a racing driver using a rearview mirror was Ray Harroun and his Marmon racing car in the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911. However, the mirror proved useless during the race because the rough surface shook. The mirror hit so hard that Harroun couldn't concentrate on anything. Oops. The rearview mirrors have changed very little since then, other than their location.

They mostly stayed just outside the cabin. It doesn't benefit any car not to see what's behind it. One device that has a directly measurable impact on driver safety is the roll cage with roll bar. In the event of a car overturning, these devices literally protect the driver from their surroundings. Some of the first mandatory uses of roll bars were in Formula Three racing, dating back to 1948. Roll bars became mandatory on the USAC racing circuit in 1959, and shortly thereafter in Formula One, after the change to the central engine location. But for most of the '60s, roll bars were basically useless in F1.

They were very low and did not protect the driver much in the event of a rollover. Modern F1 cars are built to exacting specifications and use the air intake as a rollover point that protects the driver's head. It doesn't seem very strong, but it is probably the strongest point of the entire car. For cars that did not have an open cockpit, there was the roll cage. The FIA ​​mandated that all cars had to use a roll cage or roll bar and since then they have become stronger and lighter. One type of racing that has benefited greatly from the use of roll cages is rally racing.

Not only do they protect the driver in the event of an accident or rollover, but they also improve a car's handling and performance due to their increased rigidity. WRC driver Ott Tänak and his co-driver survived a terrible crash at the Monte Carlo Rally earlier this year thanks to their roll cage. His Hyundai Veloster N left the road at 110 miles per hour, but both the driver and front passenger were uninjured in the accident. Roll cages lay the foundation for innovations in unibody constructions found in production automobiles for the everyday consumer. Stiffer cabin components not only protect drivers in the event of a rollover, but also provide rigidity and reduce body flex, which can affect performance.

Before disc brakes were standard on most cars, drum brakes were the primary means of stopping. In the racing world, the first car to use disc brakes was the BRM Type-15 at the end of the 1951 Formula One season. A Jaguar C-Type equipped with disc brakes won Le Mans back in 1953, which It's the same year that, for the first time, a production car debuted with disc brakes, dis, dis, disc brakes, on all four wheels. There are many advantages that disc brakes have over drum brakes, but first, let's look at how they both work. A drum brake uses a drum inside the wheel hub.

When the brake pedal is pressed, a pair of shoes press outward against the surface of that drum, creating friction and slowing the car. A disc brake has a flat rotor connected to the wheel hub. When the brake pedal is depressed, a caliper pinches the rotor like a mechanical crab claw, slowing the car. Disc brakes are much more efficient at dispersing heat and are less likely to experience brake wear, which is the loss of efficiency brakes experience when something overheats. Something as small as driving over a puddle in a car with drum brakes can decrease their effectiveness, as water can splash into the drum and cause your shoes to slip.

That sucks. However, today's Formula One cars use carbon composite discs and six-piston calipers. The Brabham F1 team was the first to use composite discs in 1976. Composite showed an advantage over other disc materials such as steel or iron due to the exceptional thermal, friction and anti-deformation capabilities of carbon. Just in the last 10 years in F1 competition, brakes have improved significantly. Racing car braking technology has made production car technology much safer. Modern sports cars use disc brakes exclusively, and some use carbon ceramic brakes that cost thousands of dollars to replace and make a lot of noise compared to steel rotors, causing some Porsche owners to complain a few years ago that they Their cars were too loud.

Look, you asked for the fancy brakes; Now he lives with them. Give me your carbon ceramics if you don't want them. Good sir. Brakes don't mean much without good tires, and racing tire technology has come a long way in a relatively short period of time. There is a tire for every type of weather condition, driving style and route. One of the reasons cars are safer now is because tires have become more predictable. Rubber compounds have been tested and refined for decades and the result is a tire that resists wear better, deflects water better and, most importantly, grips the track better.

Tire companies constantly strive to create the best tire for each application, fine-tuning compounds and tread patterns to optimize every aspect: stiffness, heat threshold, strength, resilience. Pirelli supplies all the tires used in Formula One, and each tire is accounted for with a barcode like they were on the fucking "Hitman" or something. Technically speaking, F1 teams don't own the tires, they simply rent them from Pirelli. Pirelli has to do this because the compounds they experiment with could be taken by another company and profit from them. There is a legitimate concern that a rival will get a chunk of your tire and reverse engineer the compound just by picking up a small marble on the race track, that's what they call the little pieces of rubber.

Therefore, it is in Pirelli's best interest to ensure that all these tires return to the laboratory. Even those that disintegrate must be collected piece by piece and returned to Pirelli. That's crazy. Of the first safety devices that appeared in racing cars, there is one that we take for granted today: seat belts. The modern multi-point harnesses used in top-level racing today began as a simple two-point seat belt. Widespread use of seat belts and harnesses in racing did not occur until the 1950s, but even then they were not standardized. It was commonly accepted that an accident would be safer if the driver was ejected from the car, which could otherwise catch it in flames.

Caught in flames. That sucks. (heavy metal music) Caught in flames. That's not even the most brutal thing I can do, dude. (high pitch) It wasn't until doctors in the 1930s began testing seat belts that they saw undeniable evidence that restraining yourself with a seat belt was much safer than being thrown from a car. Go figure. But it still took a long time to convince some drivers and racing teams that it was, in fact, safer. Although loosely enforced, NASCAR began requiring seat belts as early as the 1940s. Things improved in 1958 when a Swedish Volvo engineer named Nils Bohlin invented the three-point seat belt.

The addition of the second strap across the driver's torso prevented the upper half of the body from being thrown forward against the steering wheel. Nils could have licensed his three-point seat belt to manufacturers and made a lot of money, but he decided to leave the patent open for other companies to use freely. That is truly selfless. The world thanks you, Nils. While some racing teams have historically opposed increasing safety measures, primarily due to the added cost, some drivers have fought for better safety standards. We've all seen old footage of Le Mans drivers running to their cars, starting up and leaving, right?

Well, that tradition changed after 1969. That year, Jacky Ickx had suffered the loss of his teammate and, as a result, protested the traditional start for safety reasons. Instead of running to his car like the rest of the drivers, Jacky walked to his GT40 and took more time to put on her seat belt. He may have lost his starting position, but he wanted to prove that prevention is better than cure. His point was further emphasized shortly afterwards, when British driver John Wolfe slipped on the grass and crashed his Porsche 917 on the first lap of the race. Because Wolfe's Porsche did not have a seat belt, he was ejected from his car and died.

Jackie Ickx won Le Mans that year, proving that safety was worth the extra effort, and the following year the rules were changed to make the start of the race safer. (upbeat music) Damn. Another Jackie, legendary racing driver Sir Jackie Stewart, pushed for greater safety a few years earlier in Formula One, leading to the mandatory use of the six-point harness. Today, Formula One racing harnesses must keep the driver comfortable in their cockpit while exerting more force than ever. Hard braking in an F1 car can produce up to five g's. If the driver didn't have something holding him back, that force would send him directly into the steering wheel.

Modern harnesses are capable of withstanding a load of almost 10 tons of force. The harness should also be able to stretch and give a little in the event of a collision to cushion the blow. Even a few millimeters can dramatically reduce the amount of body damage. But drivers also have to be able to quickly get out of their car if it starts to catch fire, and that's why modern racing harnesses have a quick release so drivers don't have to fumble with six or seven straps, It's just a quick boop, and then they flee from their burning car.

He who makes a beast of himself is freed from the pain of being a man. What is this show? If you want to see me release a Finnish melodeath-inspired album, like this video, friend. I think we can do it. I'm going to listen to those voices again and see. I'm going to practice. Yes, I will practice. I'll make sure the camera keeps rolling. We are ok. (high pitch) One of the most important safety innovations in racing history is the helmet. (upbeat music) Helmets have been around in racing since the beginning, but they have come a long way from the cloth caps of the early 20th century.

Thin leather helmets and goggles were common, but they did not provide much protection. I can't imagine why. In the 1920s and 1930s, some drivers wore football helmets or firefighter helmets because they provided better protection than racing helmets. We actually did a cool evolution of racing helmets a long time ago, but it's still great, and you should check it out. ItI'll put it right there. Modern Formula One helmets are the safest they have ever been. The outer shell is made of carbon fiber and has small polycarbonate fins to direct air around the driver's head, because in open wheel racing, the driver's head affects the overall aerodynamics of the car.

That's crazy. Plus, you're going so fast you could knock the helmet off your head, so those little fins keep it down. It's like having a spoiler on your helmet. The interior of the helmet is Kevlar, molded around the specific rider's head. The visor also has multiple transparent sheets that can be removed in case dirt clouds the driver's vision. You know, cuts, you've probably seen them. After Formula One driver Felipe Massa climbed the dome at 160 miles per hour while qualifying at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, a small carbon fiber shield was added to the top of the visor.

The force of the spring hitting his helmet was equivalent to being shot with an AK-47. Luckily, Massa recovered and continued his career after the accident; In fact, he retired twice. To help the driver breathe, there are also ventilation ports, but when it comes to airflow, NASCAR helmets beat F1 by a mile. Modern NASCAR helmets have a tube in the back that connects to a fresh air inlet. It flows through the tube and around the driver's head during a race, and that's crucial when the temperature in stock cars rises over 130 degrees in the pit (bleep) and up to 170 degrees at the pedals.

Good sir. Racing drivers have been known to lose up to 10 pounds of body weight due to sweat during a race. In addition to the helmet, modern drivers wear a HANS device or head and neck support. This device prevents the head from being thrown forward in the event of a crash. The straps and harness help reduce neck strain by 81% and a total neck load of 78%. When unrestrained, drivers can suffer a fracture of the base of the skull, which is tragically what happened to NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt in 2001. Following Earnhardt's passing, NASCAR mandated that all drivers wear a HANS device. .

Mercedes helped develop the HANS device that has been used in F1 since 2003. They are different systems to those used in NASCAR, but work on the same principle. So why, among all this innovation aimed at making the safest vehicle possible, don't racing cars have

airbags

? Well, there are two different approaches to safety that satisfy two different needs, and to understand why racing cars don't have airbags, you have to understand what those needs are. Racing cars have different safety needs than passenger cars intended for the road. Comfort is not as big a concern in a race car because the important thing is to go fast, but comfort is a big concern in street cars.

You need space to move, stretch, observe your surroundings, drink your coffee, adjust the mirror, whatever. All of this requires space to move. The more space you have in your car, the farther your body will travel in the event of an accident. But that means the body has more time to slow down, and that's what safety features in passenger cars do: they slow down the speed of deceleration. The crumple zone is the first area of ​​impact. It takes much of the force of the crash and brakes the car, dispersing the force throughout the car. As your body moves forward, the seat belt supports you while giving you some slack to further decelerate your body.

As your body continues to move forward, the airbag expands to reach your chest and face and absorb that impact, hoping to slow your body enough so that the next impact, your organs hit your skeleton, not turn it completely into gelatin. Sounds delicious; actually very uncomfortable. A race car has most of these features, but heavy-duty versions to deal with the added force of going 200 miles per hour. Race cars have crumple zones, much like street cars, that help disperse some of that energy, but that's where the two diverge. The biggest difference between the two is the amount of space between the driver's seat and the steering wheel.

Race cars are designed for speed, and driver comfort is less important. If the cabin had more space, that would directly impact the weight and aerodynamics of the car, so the cabin is designed to be as compact as possible. Racing harnesses are designed to restrain the driver much more than a normal seat belt, in addition to the HANS device. All of this means that the driver doesn't move much, so if an airbag deploys, it won't do its intended function and will slow the driver down. It may not even reach the driver. An airbag would probably make driving an F1 car more dangerous.

Rally drivers often hit curbs and get into small accidents, but they continue driving as if their car is perfectly fine. The truth is that minor impacts could activate the airbag, obstructing the driver's vision when he needs to move out of the way, and then he would probably have to stop and replace the module, costing him precious track time. And then there's the problem of engine fires. If a driver crashes and the airbag deploys, it would also be much more difficult to unbuckle the harness and get out of the car in the event of a fire, and that's probably the worst way to do it.

Trapped in a burning car, no thanks. On that horrible note, thank you very much for watching. If you liked this video, guys, give it a like. Hey, now we have something new called Donut Every Day. Where we publish every day. We have a car show for literally everyone. If you liked this, you'll probably like our other shows, so hit that subscribe button and make sure you don't miss out, because they're all great. Follow Donut on all social networks. Thanks so much for looking. Go, see you next time.