An indept and up-to-date analysis of safety in Formula One: Things you didn’t know about Formula One – a ground breaking network of measures guarantees the highest safety standard possible!
Take a closer look behind the scenes!
- The first Safety Car in Formula One was used in 1973 at the Canadian Grand Prix.
- The first crash tests were introduced in Formula One in 1985. Nowadays, a Formula One car must pass three dynamic and twelve static tests before it is approved. In the process, the survival cell must always remain completely intact.
- Drivers in a Nomex®-3 overall can survive for 35 seconds even in temperatures of 840° celsius. In comparison: the maximum temperature in a sauna is 100°, in an apartment fire it would be up to 800° and the lava in a volcanic eruption reaches between 750 and 1,000°.
- In the Parabolica, a sweeping right-hand corner at the Monza circuit, the drivers are exposed to extreme centrifugal forces at speeds of about 200 km/h.
- The safety fences around the circuit at Albert Park, where the Australian Grand Prix is held, have been increased in height to 3.80 metres - these measures were the organisers’ response to the death of a marshal who was killed by a flying wheel in 2001.
- Every single thread in the T 800 high-performance fibre used in Formula One helmets consists of about 12,000 microthreads. Each one of these microthreads is 15 times thinner than a single human hair. The total length of all the threads processed in one helmet is approximately 16,000 km.
- The circuit in Spa, Belgium is considered to be an extremely
challenging race track, mainly due to its fast, hilly and twisty nature
as well as the Eau Rouge, one of the most famous and dangerous corners of any racing track in the world. - The 557 marshals and the 177 fire-brigade officers deployed at the Malaysian Grand Prix are given three weeks’ training before the race. This is intended to increase the safety for everyone involved.
- For a monocoque, about 30 square metres of carbon-fibre mats are processed, in which the individual fibres are five times thinner than a human hair.
- A Medical Center at a Formula One race track is equipped with all the necessary medical devices and manned at all hours by one of three shifts, each including an orthopaedic surgeon, an anaesthesiologist and six paramedics.
- The FIA made the 400 metre-long tunnel in Monaco safer for the drivers by installing better lighting. Since 2001, an optical system has redirected sunlight into the tunnel’s interior, creating a cone of light that makes entering the dark concrete tube easier for the drivers and provides almost optimal illumination inside the tunnel.
Bernd Mayländer
Always in background and still an important part of modern Formula One
Bernd Mayländer, the Official Formula One™ Safety Car driver. The FIA is responsible for the deployment of the Official Formula One™ Safety Car and sends it onto the track in hazardous situations.
“In the field of safety, a lot has changed over the past few years. Regardless of which Formula One topic you speak about, whether it is the race car, the circuit, or the procedure of a Safety Car deployment – everything is being actively thought about and there is always room for improvement.
There are different departments within the FIA which are responsible for safety in Formula One and there are many regulations which are created in co-operation with the F1 teams. These intensive exchanges with the drivers ensure a constant improvement. I believe that we already have a very high level of safety existing currently however, we do not want to only maintain this level of safety, we want to constantly improve it!”
Find more exclusive insights by Bernd Mayländer in the Allianz Safety Dictionary, the impressive reference tool on Safety and Risk management in Formula One:
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