While the Formula One car has undergone many a change to keep up with technology, ever-changing regulations and safety requirements, one tiny little detail has so far escaped the tides of time, the open cockpit.
However, with safety being a cardinal area of focus right now, not to mention a number of high profile incidents such as the death of Aryton Senna and Felipe Massa’s black out from being hit by a stray component from the car in front, Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, has been looking to tackle that area.
Although the idea has been mooted before, controversy has been dogging it with questions of the additional weight, reduced visibility as well as the part about making it harder for the driver to get out of the car in the event of an emergency or crash.
Therefore, the FIA’s Formula One Technical Working Group has been conducting studies on the pros and cons of closing the cockpit and the video shows one of the tests conducted. They fired a tyre at 225/km/h into a polycarbonate windshield and a jet fighter cockpit to see how the materials reacted.
It’s interesting to see how the aerospace-spec polycarbonate used on the jet fighter’s cockpit absorbs the impact and channels the tyre away from it without cracking or breaking. By the looks of it, things in the cockpit just might get a little tighter than it already is.
<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/26098946?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" frameborder="0" height="225" width="400"></iframe>FIA Institute Jet Canopy Test from FIA Institute on Vimeo.
Source: Vimeo
