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chrisboesing | 13 years ago

I can totally understand that.

What I don't get is why the F1 officials haven't learned more out of that tragic accident. Sure the cars are much safer than they were when Senna died, but why do they have to at more and more races in city centers? Sure, I can understand that they want to keep Monaco for historic reason, but there isn't a good reason to have races in the city centers of Valencia, Singapore, and soon New Jersey.

Driving that close to walls at the speeds they do, will sooner or later lead to another tragic accident.

For everyone who isn't a F1 fan check out this video from the race in Singapore to see what I'm talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qYwC2qov44

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protomyth|13 years ago

Its tradition and a feeling of invulnerability until something really bad happens. Sometimes even after the fall things aren't done. IndyCar was working on a safer car before Las Vegas 2011, but I am not sure they have got the total message themselves or really in a financial position to change what they need changed.

NASCAR changed everything after their tragedy and hasn't had a driver death since. The next car after the COT is safe yet and all the tracks have safer barriers. I get the feeling that the restrictor plate racing is going to be the next big set of changes (funny, given that the plate was to keep the speeds down to make those tracks safe).

bgarbiak|13 years ago

Street tracks has to conform to the same strict rules as the regular ones. That's why they usually have much smaller average speeds, so things like huge run-off areas are not needed. Take a look at your video again: only in one place the car reaches 300km/h. Crashes on street tracks happen quite often (less room for errors), yet I can't recall any serious one. Ok, Kubica's shunt in Montreal looked scary - but Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a semi-street and unusually fast track. The new ones are fine (safety-wise), really. Open cockpits and loose wheels are the big issues for now - both being currently worked on.