Since I have been watching F1 I have seen two events that I really thought were fatal: Pedro Diniz loosing his roll bar before landing on his head at the Nurburgring and Phillipe Massa getting hit by a 2kg spring in the head at 150mph.

When the driver just slumps motionless and the marshals hold up screens to block your view of the extraction, you get a nausous feeling that something horrible has happened.

Death on a racetrack is so sudden and in the past it could happen for very trivial reasons. Jim Clark died because a tire deflated and sent him into the trees at high speed.

They could have done a lot even in the 50s and 60s to make racing much safer than it was.

Hi, Falstar. In all fairness, they cannot have known what was going on. Drivers - particularly from minor teams with limited resources - have been known before and since this accident to have tried to douse the flames in their own cars after safely exiting a crashed car, and to someone approaching the scene at 120 m.p.h., this probably would have seemed to be the case. Purley witnessed the crash, which accounts for his own actions; that, and an admirable degree of heroism in his personality.

Purolator, I can understand Jochen Mass' comment. For one thing, it was a part of the game back then. And, while I am happy that there have been no on-track F1 fatalities since 1994 (and two off-track), I am not sure that I would watch F1 if injury or death during races was made completely impossible. For some forms of sport or human endeavour, triumph in the face of risk seems to be necessary. Would anyone have given a damn if Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay summited Everest up an enclosed, pressurized, and heated indoor staircase with hotel rooms every 1000 feet? Would anyone even remember the names Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins if the moon flight was no more dangerous than a stroll to the corner store?

Removal of risk from certain activities means that any idiot can give them a go, sometimes with a good deal of success. Your average couch potato can be a hard-charging killing machine in a first person shooter; add a little real-life risk, and his tactics might change a little. As safe as F1 relatively is, Vettel, Alonso, Button, Hamilton et al have to know that they might just die doing what they do. For the glory and fame to mean anything, I think that is as it should be, even if things went a little too far in the past.

There's a partner programme to this: "Madness on Wheels - Rallying's Craziest Years" which covers the rise and tragic fall of Group B.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qjf2v

(if you're in the UK you can probably get it on BBC iPlayer for the next week or so)

You make a good point, and I can only speak for my own Motorbike Trackday Racing (Hobby of course, nothing anywhere professional).

The thrill of Bike Racing vs. for example Karts to me (which are not so much less demanding at all) is the added risk. Of course on most regular tracks in my area any lowsider at normal corner speed will not result in something seriously bad, but it's a bit of risk to play with still. Not to mention the financial cost of dropping the bike is also something that I "play against".

I know I'll be terrible pissed when (not if) in the coming years I first drop my new bike but that's part of the challenge. Everyone can go fast on the limit if no likely risk is involved (i.e. your average public rental kart hall/track).

(Of course I'm aware you can overturn a kart and hurt yourself, but it happens really rarely in public venues where the equipment and tracks are adapted for "everyone can have a go" public).

You talk as if it has to be one extreme or the other, but in reality this isn't the case.
The sport has gone to the other extreme, but it didn't have to be this way.

Tracks are castrated and boring for the most part, the cars look like hell.
The sport has been largely ruined.




That works with table tennis, but has no place in a sport with cars screaming down a track at 200mph
"No chance" would mean a 15 mph speed limit and padded corners.

In races, everyone believes the guy next to him , or someone fromthe organization will do the job. Years ago, when I still did some bicycle races, a guy missed a curve at full speed (yes, it was about 50 km/h )and crashed unusually violently in a fence. As the finish line was only two kms ahead, nobody stopped but me, shouting something like " Am I the only a..hole who's stopping now for helping this one ?!!!" one guy finally turned back to help as I realized that the one who crashed had fallen unconscious in a ditch full of water and was simply drowning, you could only see his forearm, his helmet and bubbles coming at the surface...and that was a sunday amateur race from mid 40's years old competitors...

It seems to me you read my posting somewhat selectively. Right before the sentence



I wrote (emphasis added by me)



We can certainly argue about semantics, but it's obvious that total safety in motor racing is simply not possible, unless
you stop racing completely or - as you pointed out quite well - go around with 15mph and padded corners (and cars...).

We can lament about racing having become boring, but it's a fact that it's still watched by millions nowadays and a fatality rate or safety level as it was 40-50 years ago simply wouldn't be accepted anymore nowadays.

I wonder sometimes about the total dependance on aerodynamics. Just removing all wings from F1 would completely change the nature of the series. The cars would be no less safe, perhaps more so. The tracks could then change, opening the way for more interesting layouts.