Martin Brundle shines a spotlight on the safety concerns of the Spa circuit

Time to get bots racing these cars f1 is getting to health and safety

Brundle, it's by far the best track in F1. Moreover the sport is in trouble, people don't watch, because it's PERFECTLY safe. If I want boring left hand ovals, I'll watch Indy.

By racing is dead the drivers now that

The fact SPA, an European racetrack that's dangerous, is still using wheel barriers baffles me. Technology has developed that now stuff like tecpro barriers exist and still, they're nowhere to be found in this circuit. I Know they're expensive as hell, but I bet if the promoters would charge you 10 dollars more per ticket in 2024 to change those, I don't think there's one person attending that race who wouldn't splash those 10 extra dollars in the name of those we've lost to those 2 corners.

Making the car get to the limit and having not enough passive energy dissipation in place are different things.
Going ip the hill the left side of radillon needs to be widened, and some speed reducing surface installed.
The exit right hand side needs an extended runoff.

This wont stop accidents, but it will give drivers a bit more time and space to avoid pile-ups

Would like to see some high end technical absorption materials used on this section so if the worst happens it absorbs the energy as much as possible.

The conditions were to blame in Dilano’s incident. For the Anthoine and Dilano incidents it wasn’t crashing there, it was someone else then crashing their already-stricken car that led to the tragic outcome. High speed crashes are part of the sport, drivers do train their bodies to be strong. But technological advances or materials science improvements need to happen to dissipate energy in initial collisions and then maintain some crash structure to dissipate secondary crashes. That’s the only way we can move on from this. That’s the way that every corner loses another major life-threatening aspect of it.

So glad martin brundle was the man to create this piece and not some young soft individual, risk is a part of the sport and always will be, stop watching or walk away if you dont like it

It isn't the corner's fault; it's the rain's fault. More specifically, the large amount of water that gets launched into the air and prevents visibility. Also, it's due to the fact that F1 cars have little to no protection on the sides (unlike the front with crash structure and rear with all the components shielding you), and adding something to the sides would make cars even wider and heavier. In my opinion, just add mandatory full wheel covers that can be put on and removed in a short period of time (something like the front wing replacement) and make them mandatory to put on with wet tires.

Yes, fast corners are great. What's not great is a geometry of retaining walls that bounce cars back to the middle of the road. and unsighted climb where a damaged car could be waiting after being bounced into the course.

With all due respect. I wish MB would move on.

I don't want to say anything bad about Manual Correa but if the top was gravel and not tarmac runoff he wouldn't have stayed full throttle and wouldn't have t-boned Hubert at nearly full speed.
That was what killed him, not the initial crash but the second one.

So … not one decent idea: "slow the cares down" … thats all he's got.

Bring back the sand trap instead of asphalt !!

So what's an acceptable death rate? No one? Belt up.1 a month? Under what circumstances. No one within a televised event? What will yhe sponsors say. No minors? All junior bike sport and karting has to go. No inexperienced racers? How would you then become older and experienced? No heart attack medical related expirations? Rules most of the classic and vintage lot out. No amateurs? They're less likely to play death dodgems when it takes a year to repair your only chassis. Only pros? We all know money can buy your way around the spirit of car licencing graduations. Put the bar to racing up and you just kill more blokes on track days and the street. Insist of full carbon indestructible tubs and a trauma surgeon every corner… and no one can afford to compete. Not that there are enough medical personnel to cover this and the rest of society. Minimum run off calculations? That rules out all the street circuits. Crane access to remove debris? If we cant kill drivers we certainly cant kill supporting marshalling staff, the drivers are there voluntarily, not so the marshalls. Spa have put a huge amount of time, money and skill into safety systems. They are a very high quality approachable team for attentiveness and response. It has been a pleasure to work with them. But you simply cannot make 7km of high speed dance as safe as kiddies go karts.

This is tough, but has been talked about for several years now. Extra external safety can bring about subconsious change in athlete behaviour. Driving, cricket helmets, bike helmets. But can we possibly roll back driver safety to raise psychological safety features? No.