F1 drivers have agreed that the sport should implement better cockpit protection for 2017.<\/p>\n
Alex Wurz, president of the safety-oriented Grand Prix Drivers’ Association (GPDA), told the BBC: “The research the FIA experts have done is very thorough and the process has brought forward a clear solution.<\/p>\n
“Now the drivers feel it’s time to implement the extra protection at the latest in 2017.”<\/p>\n
Calls for better head protection – such as canopies, cages or a Mercedes-devised ‘halo’ solution – have grown stronger since the death of Jules Bianchi.<\/p>\n
Wurz said drivers now unanimously want a “swift implementation” of a solution.<\/p>\n
“Obviously structural changes are required to the chassis but, with almost a one-year lead time, I don’t see any technical person speaking against such substantial safety improvements, especially given the last big accidents in open-wheel racing involved head injuries,” he added.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Wurz said drivers are also pushing F1 to make changes to the tyres, arguing that the current Pirelli era does not equate to “maximum-attack racing”.<\/p>\n
“The drivers want to underline very clearly that they would love Pirelli to produce a tyre which goes faster around corners as well as being safe,” he said.<\/p>\n
“That’s what we want and, according to the fan survey we did last year, what all the fans expect.”<\/p>\n
However, it might be argued that the drivers’ push for better safety as well as much higher cornering speeds are contradictory.<\/p>\n
But Wurz argues: “We know that car and circuit safety was designed for higher speeds.<\/p>\n
“We have seen higher cornering speeds in F1 already, back in 2009, cars went more than 30mph faster around corners,” he explained.<\/p>\n
“While we drivers want to minimise the dangers, by using modern technologies and the amazing safety know-how F1 developed over the years, drivers accept the underlying risks of racing to a certain extent.<\/p>\n
“But first and foremost race drivers want to go fast.”<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
F1 drivers have agreed that the sport should implement better cockpit protection for 2017. Alex Wurz, president of the safety-oriented Grand Prix Drivers’ Association (GPDA), told the BBC: “The research the FIA experts have done is very thorough and the process has brought forward a clear solution. “Now the drivers feel it’s time to implement …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32620,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[894,5262,5300,5340,566,979,1675,1404,5107],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32619"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32621,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32619\/revisions\/32621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}