From Senna to Bianchi: 21 years of F1 Safety

This week, a young talent would have celebrated his 26th lap around the sun. Jules Bianchi, with immense talent and a world of promise ahead of him, passed away three weeks ago following 9 months in a coma.

The youngster, part of the Ferrari Drivers’ Academy, was said to be one of the best talents they had seen in a while. Mentored by two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, Bianchi spent the past year at Manor-Marussia. Several sources, however, said he had been poised for a seat at Ferrari prior to his tragic accident at Suzuka in 2014. Racing in typhoon-hit Japan, drivers’ visibility at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix was seriously hampered. Sauber’s Adrian Sutil crashed at a turn, and his car was being cleared away after he walked away from the wreckage.

One lap later, Bianchi, driving at that same turn, went at high speed into the parked crane, knocked out immediately. He would never regain consciousness.

His passing marked the first death as a direct result of a Formula One race since that tragic summer morning in Italy in 1994 when F1 lost its greatest icon of all time, Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna.

Unlike Bianchi’s death, Senna’s was most likely caused by automobile issues. The most widely-accepted theory for his accident is a serious steering column failure, but famed F1 engineer Adrian Newey, who designed the Williams FW16 Senna was travelling in, said it was impossible to know whether this occurred due to the accident or caused it.

The weekend of the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix had been marred by accidents even prior to Senna’s. Rubens Barichello, who was being mentored by Senna, was driving in practice for Jordan the Friday of that race weekend, and had a significant crash at Variente Bassa after hitting a curb at Imola. He was knocked unconscious almost instantly, with Senna rushing instantly to check on him before returning to the race himself.

Senna was not the first casualty at that race. During qualifying, Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger of Simtek Racing had his own steering fail completely, crashing with speed into the concrete barrier at the Villeneuve corner. Senna was greatly affected by the Austrian's death, and spoke to colleague Alain Prost the morning of the race (and his own death) looking to make introductions to Formula One to make the sport safer.

Drivers had proposed at the time the reinstatement of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association leading improvements to the sport, and Niki Lauda, who had suffered his own big accident 18 years prior, suggested Senna lead the group, which the Brazilian was due to do following the subsequent Monaco Grand Prix.

Safety measures were put in place in the immediate aftermath of Senna’s death.

Analyses were run at Tamburello and all of Imola to ascertain it was not track design that had caused or contributed to Senna’s passing.

Following this, significant changes were effected to the structure of cars and tracks.

Among the track design changes instituted were more crash barriers and turn changes, including the one at Tamburello where Senna perished.

Changes in the 90s

Several vehicle redesigns were also instituted in the aftermath, many of which are part of the more aerodynamic, streamlined vehicles found in Formula One today. These include better cockpit design and stronger support for tyres, to ensure they could not come loose and injure a driver.

The most developments in F1 safety came in the immediate aftermath of that fateful 1994 weekend. Fire safety was stepped up significantly, and most importantly for spinning cars, tyre barriers now undergo rigorous testing, speed limits are tightened, and helmets are fortified.

As what appears to be a direct result of Senna’s accident, steering wheels became detachable towards the end of the 90s as cockpits became broader and larger, giving drivers ease of access and exit in case of an emergency.

Upgrades in the 2000s

In the two decades after Senna’s death, there have been no Formula One deaths – but there have been several drivers who have come close.

Most notably among these is currently-active driver Felipe Massa. The Brazilian was driving for Scuderia Ferrari in 2009 at the Hungarian Grand Prix when a spring came loose from the car of Rubens Barichello, hitting Massa’s helmet and disorienting him completely.

Massa went straight into the tyre barriers, sustaining injuries that were described as “life-threatening”. Immediately airlifted to hospital, the driver eventually made a recovery following emergency surgery around his left eye and narrowly avoiding injury to his brain. It was later ascertained that Barichello’s car had suffered a suspension failure that had caused the spring to come loose.

He eventually had a titanium plate inserted in his skull and took a year off Formula One before making his return to the sport. He is still active and has had a good racing season this year, partnered by Finn Valtteri Bottas.

Former F1 driver Robert Kubica, who would eventually go on to quit the sport from another injury he sustained, found himself exposed by the frame of his car at the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix, when he crashed into a wall after making contact with Jarno Trulli’s Toyota on the track. While the avoidability of the accident itself is questionable, it is without a doubt that the structure of Kubica’s BMW was seriously lacking.

Sustaining a 75G force on his body, Kubica was injured and the nose of his vehicle entirely shattered – so much so that his feet were exposed.

This brings to question the testing to which cars are subjected prior to being employed in a race, which is itself an essential part of safety. And it has been a repeated issue.

Move forward two years to the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix. Ferrari driver Felipe Massa appeared to suddenly lose control of his vehicle entirely, going into the wall at full speed. He hit the wall and lost consciousness, with several medical professionals believing he would not survive. His condition at the time was described as ‘critical’.

It turned out that a spring had come loose from the car of Rubens Barichello, driving for Brawn GP. The spring hit his compatriot Massa squarely in the helmet, completely disorienting the driver.

To understand just how bad it was, watch:

The last 10 years have seen the most safety improvements of any decade in Formula One, and among these we see several track changes. Silverstone is redesigned, with Stowe now becoming an asphalt surface instead. The Hungaroring underwent changes, although these were prior to Massa’s horrific accident. That, however, cannot be entirely attributed to the track. Safety barriers were supposed to have been updated at the track, though, and it appears this did not help the Brazilian on course for a crash.

In a sad twist of irony, the other track updated for safety at the time was Suzuka, where new and broader emergency access zones were created.

Several safety changes were instituted until 2014, including a Motor Sport Safety Development Fund, with a management committee comprising Michael Schumacher as Chairman, Max Mosley, Nick Craw, and former Ferrari chief and current FIA President Jean Todt.

Present and future: What now?

Most recently, the safety changes have included extra fortification for tyres – this to prevent stray tyres on the track, which could cause a massive multi-car accident and very grevious harm to drivers.

This appears to have helped. Several incidents in the past few years, most recently at the Hungaroring in 2015, involving Force India driver Sergio Perez, have involved tyres that could easily have come loose and resulted in injury that was otherwise well-prevented.

Bianchi’s accident was a result of several factors: the weather being a major contributor. The most glaring mistake however, was that despite the existence of a safety car, it had not been deployed to the track.

It is only in the aftermath of his accident that yet another committee was instituted to investigate more safety concerns, following which the Virtual Safety Car is now a feature in races before the actual safety car is deployed, limiting racing, speed limits and formation to maximise safety. Instructions are also now electronically relayed to drivers instantly via lights in the cockpit.

Was the 25-year-old’s death preventable? Considering all the safety measures in place, it should have been. Helmets had been redesigned by this point, as had tracks. Should marshals have called off the race during the typhoon? There will be many questions, and they will be there for years to come.

All in all, 21 years does not seem a bad record for a sport that involves high-speed cars, altitudes, fuel and fire. Hopefully measures taken in recent years prevent another tragic incident like Bianchi’s.