Chicanes: an essentail saftey feature or an accident waiting to happen???

[Tristan]

It's the burning issue of the moment in F1 - the death ofthe marshall at the weekend's Italian GP has opened a safter can-of-worms and raised the problems regarding chicanes. Origionally installed at Monza as a saftey feature (ie to slow the cars down), the "variantes" are now being cited as the cause of the carnage on the first lap that ultimatley ended in,thankfully, only the one fatality. Even Bernie (according to Gerard's topic) has expressed concern at the existance of chicanes at not only Monza but GP tracks in general.

So: are chicanes an necessary evil??? Sure they slow the cars down, but do a 22 cars coming into a breaking zone at 200mph+ too much to ask of the drivers?? Ultimatly it is their responsibility: are the drivers good enough?? Or is it the cars?? Guards on the open wheels could stop some of the carnage perhaps or maybe teathers on wheels should be streangthened and added to wings?

Do not forget, however, there are two sides to every argument. In 20 years two drivers have died in F1 and virtually no cases of serious injury resulting in permanent paralasis or whatever. No marshall has been killed since 1977. Besides, in this case the marshall was rumoured to NOT have been standing behind barriers. Was it his fault then??

Without chicanes we would be deprived of overtaking on many circuits. Under breaking from high speed, the drivers are presented with virtually the only opportunity to pass on the lap. On the one hand we all want good racing. But are chicanes just TOO DANGEROUS??? Or would removing them just be (another) case of saftey gone mad??

SO MANY QUESTIONS TO ANSWER!!!!! Over to you....

[slicktoast]

If the chicanes are truly needed, maybe if they were proportionally made wider and longer with a gravel trap so it can't be straight-lined, then the intention could be met. I don't think the speed has as much to do with the problem as the bottlenecking at entrance does. Make the chicane into a permanant wide slower turn. I'm sure someone will have valid reasons why this won't do, but...

[Tristan]

Ah yes, but that'd cost more money!! And what makes the world go round?????

[Bononi]

To design a great circuit is pure magic. That's why Spa is one of the best. But try to change them to reduce speed, dangerous curves or whatever, is unpredictable. They should re-think the whole circuit rather than isolated pieces of it.

[Jay]

Even Spa has its sorry spot in the Bus Stop chicane. Although the circuit is the favorite of many drivers, the bus stop is one of the most hated chicanes in F1.

However, there is almost nothing that can be done about it, as there is no way that cars should be going through that area at 200+ mph.

I suspect this same situation is true on many other circuits.

[Bononi]

Exactly. I doubt something can be done, when it comes to highly costs. That's when I think why Bernie is pointing to these new circuits out of Europe...

[Valve Bounce]

Would a medium speed left right (or roght left) be better than a chicane? What would happen if chicanes were removed completely? Would we have a dangerous situation where the chicanes used to be, or in the following corner?

[kuchi]

Well the chicanes are a difficult safety issue that Fia has to consider. But taking them out, I don´t see it very rentable. It will cost big bucks, and we can´t tell if it is the wiser choice. Eventhough chicanes are in some tracks very dangerous, don´t get me wrong but I love cars squeezing trying to go by the chicanes, blocking brakes, and passing their opponents, but if all this fun it´s going to cost us lives of people well it´s tough.

[KC]

One of the watch phrases spouted by the Safety people is "Speed Kills!". Correctly, "Speed differential kills!" Hitting an object at high velocity is much more dangerous than travelling at high speed.

Adding chicanes to a circuit provides at much higher chance of contact between cars and driver errors under braking than it enhances the specatacle or provides some level of safety. Would HHF have struck the cars at front of him if there were no chicane at Monza?

[Tristan]

But are circuits like Sepang and Zuhai the answr?? Their soooo boring and only exist due to tobacco sponsorship (the far east is the only place where it's still "cool" to smoke. China smokes half of the worlds ciggies).

Me, I vote keep it the same. Chicanes offer a good place for overtaking. They test the driver and break up the flow of a circuit (a GOOD thing, in my view). Two driver deaths in twenty years in F1 is a good record (please correct me if I'm wrong). They occured on the ultra fast tamburello and villeneuve corners at Imola, now replaced with pseudo-chicanes. One marshal death in 23 years is also impressive, especially as he was standing outside the protection of the barriers. Greater marshall saftey boxes are the answer, not more knee-jerk changes to circuits as after 1994.

[angst]

Personally I hate chicanes. I think that breaking up the rhythm of a track is anything but a good thing, and watching cars trying desparately to scrabble through past an opponent at some awful chicane is a poor excuse for excitement - Villeneuve/Arnoux Dijon '79 - no piddling variantes there, a good flowing circuit and a HUGELY entertaining dice. I don't believe Sepang and the like are the answer either, just dire boring unchallenging nothings. It is a tough one, maybe the cars could be slowed by a number of different methods. Less aerodynamics, no carbon brakes and a reduction in the engine capacity. All these in conjunction would mean that circuits could be opened up a little more, wouldn't that be a better solution?

[Bononi]

So the answer is : There are chicanes and chicanes. What's wrong is where it is, that means if a chicane is in a potential dangerous place, that must be changed ?
Let's see the Monza case. I have seen many Monza races, and many crashes there. What happened that Sunday, was many drivers high powered challenging for positions. Isn't what we want ?
Well, I don't think anything must change, like Tristan, it was a racing incident (unfortunately), what should be done is more talking and understanding with the drivers. I know any of them did not want that, but racing is racing.
Frentzen has my support on that, I don't a chicken driver waiting for a secure pass, and then try to make something.
I know a life has been lost. But that means that security must be better OUT OF THE TRACK, as we saw, no drivers were hurt.

[Dan Friel]

I think Bernie may have lost the plot.. one moment they want tonnes of chicanes, the next year their an evil!! What is this all about??? I know that a marshal was killed, but it was a dreadful freak accident - and if it hadn't been at a chicane perhaps the wheels and cars would have flown further than they actually did...

Can you imagine how quick the German GP will be next year without chicanes!! Flipping heck....

[angst]

I see your point Dan, but I think there are two BIG issues here. One is - if you're going to build chicanes, at least do it properly not just stop start, stop start as at Monza. I think Silverstone did it right by basically redesigning the whole circuit, not just throwing a chicane in here and there. I know this wouldn't be possible at Monza, but surely to have an additional corner, properly designed would be better than a left/right swerve stuck in the middle of the track.
The other is - do something about the cars. In terms of allowing them to overtake so that fighting for position in the first few corners isn't quite such a desparate act, and also opening up braking areas by banning carbon brakes, giving more time to the drivers to think and react and also by slowing them down both on the straights and through the corners. The chicanes at Monza are dangerous because they're almost an afterthought - "oh bang in a chicane, that'll slow them down" and more than that they're awful, terrible blots on a circuit.

[Liz]

Before they put the chicanes in, Monza used to be wicked fast. Now with the chicanes in, the speed is almost the same as it was before they were there. Perhaps the answer is not to continually babyproof the circuits, but to make the cars more driver-intensive; that is, to make the cars have to be driven, not just steered. You can't tell me the Lotus 79 was not as good a car to watch as the modern McLaren! Maybe this is putting the genie back in to the bottle, but maybe it would turn racing back into a sport.

I was going to say that a lot more people had been killed racing in the last 20 years, but most of those were killed in practice. Still, Elio, Gilles, et al. should count for something too. And were not a lot of spectators injured in the accident at the beginning of Imola 1994?

[AlteredGrizz]

Well said Buttplug.

[TimD]

I agree with you, BP. Accidents can happen despite every safety measure under the sun. No one is holding a gun to a guy's head making him get into a Formula 1 car. They all go racing by their own decision.

Which is not to say that F1 shouldn't adopt and use every proven safety feature it can find.

But I wonder, wouldn't the spectacle for the fans be even better if instead of the chicanes, there was a long, fast straight, possibly a sweeping 200mph corner, leading to a sharp, slow, decisive turn?

Monza and Hockenheim used to be fabulous for slipstreaming and overtaking. Indeed, in the old days, it was said that in the Italian GP, the last place you wanted to be as you started the last lap, was in the lead!

Seeing the drafting taking place at turn 13/14 at Indy this weekend, is like a breath of fresh air. It leaves me hankering for more.

You're right, the spectacle's the thing, but wouldn't that be a greater spectacle than watching them all scrabbling around a chicane trying to squeeze past one another?

[Jay]

Speeking of useless chicanes, how about those two 70-80 kph turns at Indy. They serve no purpose whatsoever, and just destroy a driver's rhythm.

The rest of the track is OK, but that section totally bites.