Dan Wheldon was killed by a blow to the head, which is probably the biggest danger faced by both Indycar and F1 drivers these days. The most spectacular crashes, where the car rolls over and over, are usually less dangerous than they appear. The energy is dissapated over time, so there is less trauma to the driver (the Kubica crash in the OP being a good example). An impact straight into a barrier is much more hazardous. Improved track design has mitigated this, run off areas at fast corners are larger and thicker barriers are in place. However, the only protection the drivers have against anything intruding directly into the cockpit is their crash helmet. In 2009, Filipe Massa was seriously injured by a suspension spring that fell off a leading car.
I tend to agree that Indycar is more dangerous to the drivers than F1. The speeds are higher and there are more multiple car collisions, so a greater chance of debris hitting the driver. However, F1 poses a greater risk to the race marshals, as cars are frequently recovered from the side of the track without halting the race.
Just a little nit-pick. Indy is banked at 9 degrees in the corners. It’s not much, certainly nothing like the 20 degrees of LVMS, but still banked nonetheless.
I don’t think so. Even disregarding the costs considerations (lost revenue included from all the stands ripped out), a car which departs a steeply banked track at 200+ MPH isn’t going to land in the gravel and slide safely to a stop, it’s going to be catapulted into the air and sail some odd number of feet. You could make the gravel match the bank angle of the track…but this is simply unworkable and impractible.
Seats on the inside of a straight are good. I have had seats inside a turn. You can’t see anything but straight in front of you and with the cars doing 200+, it sucks. Seats outside a turn are great, the track curves out from in front of the people beside you.
As aerodave points out, Indy is banked. But in general, I would imagine the lack of (or reduced) banking probably makes the track safer, as cars have to slow down to take the turns.
A low banked, large oval like Indy is definitely a very different animal than the Vegas track for sure.
At Indy, if you are running in clean air (which provides better downforce) you can run flat out all the way around the circuit. That doesn’t mean you won’t lose speed in the corners, as that’s a simple matter of physics (unless the entire circuit was 90 degr banked), but you can run the circuit without lifting once. The key here is in clean air and most of the time. By the end of the race, theoretically each turn could have 6600 laps on it (33 cars x 200 laps). In a low bank setting, there is a tremendous amount of stress on the tires, which leaves rubber on certain parts of the corners, which in turn reduces the amount of track cars can use, essentially making the corners single file affairs requiring a specific line and some lift. Compared to LV, it is much, much safer for a couple of reasons:
LV has greater banking, which allows everyone to run flat out on 3 or 4 different lines for the duration of the race with less tire debris (marbles) cutting off high track lines.
Roughly the same number of cars where on a circuit that is only 3/5 the length of Indy, so there is more traffic on the course.
F1 vs. Indy from a car safety standpoint, given the exact same collision, I’d choose to be in an Indycar every time. Same cockpit protection/structure but in a heavier and more reinforced vehicle and tub makes it a safer option. Of course, all things aren’t equal and F1 is more safe. The obvious difference is the oval w/ safer barrier vs. lower speed courses with run off areas. As long as races are run on ovals, you can’t significantly reduce the safety disparity. The other difference that can be changed is the lack of variation in Indycar. Everyone runs the same technology (engine, chassis, aero package), and they’ve been running that package for a long time (about a decade). The difference between the fastest and 20th fastest car is tiny, which leads to bunching. Any advantage the wealthy teams have in terms of data and education for car setup gets reduced over several years in an “innovationless” environment. In F1, the difference between #1 and #20 is tremendous because the engine, chassis, and aero packages are all different. They change year to year as well. Cars don’t run together as much because the wealthy teams are substanitally stronger, and there is even considerable variation among the top 3-4 teams per year as well.
This feeds into driver psychology as well. In Indycar, many cars and teams can hope to win a race or two in any given year. There is an incentive to take more risks to be 0.5 sec faster per lap than the car/driver comfort zone because that is the difference between winning and 10th place. In F1, the tenth or 12th best car has no reasonable chance of winning a race or even getting a podium without the help of retirements from faster teams. This season, 3 teams(6 cars) got every first or second place finish in the championship. Only one other team (5th place Renault) even got on the podium (2 3rd place finishes in the first two races of the season). The 4th best team (Mercedes) had only one 4th place finish to show for their effort this year. Pushing a little bit more on raceday in F1 just doesn’t carry the same reward. The better strategy in F1 is to run within the car and driver’s ability and hope for mechanical issues/crashes from the frontrunners.
I’ll post my response to the Game Room thread - here
Suffice to say, the issue isn’t one of Formula 1 vs. Indy Car, but one of NASCAR vs. Indy Car. They had no business on that track. Will Power commented on NPR yesterday that he told his dad prior to the race that he thought someone was going to die.