MOTORSPORT: New focus on side-impact crashes

Next weekend all cars competing at the Townsville 400 – V8 Supercars in both the main and development series, V8 Utes, Porsche Carrera Cup and Formula Ford -- will display special stickers in tribute to Simonsen, a Dane who had raced a lot and very successfully in Australia.

A special tribute also is being organised for the next round of the Australian GT Championship at Sydney Motorsport Park on the second weekend of July.

A former Australian GT champion, Simonsen was a regular co-driver in V8 Supercar endurance races – third in the Bathurst 1000 two years ago with Greg Murphy and booked to partner David Wall in a Brad Jones Racing Holden Commodore this year - and had made his seventh start at Le Mans.

Not much has been said in the world of motorsport this week though – publicly at least – specificially about safety there.

That is not to say it is being ignored or overlooked.

The organiser of the Le Mans 24-Hour, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), and the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) will investigate the Simonsen crash fully  and report in due course.

Improvements undoubtedly will come – to the cars and the circuit.

The Aston Martin Vantage GTE Simonsen was driving left the track at almost 170kmh at the Tertre Rouge corner on the fourth lap of the 24-hour race – less than 10 minutes after the start.

He was attended promptly by the ACO’s doctors and transferred to the circuit medical centre where he was pronounced dead.

Simonsen’s crash was a side impact. Coincidentally side-impact crashes have come into the spotlight from another angle this week.

The FIA announced that, apart from new cars with 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 engines, drivers of Formula One cars – open-wheelers obviously, unlike the enclosed coupe Simonsen was driving -- will have greater protection next season from side impacts and oblique angles.

It said a new protection system had been developed after a year’s collaboration between four F1 teams – Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes and Marussia – and the FIA Institute of Motor Sport Safety.

Andy Mellor, a research consultant to the FIA for almost a decade, said the group had “gone back to basics” in looking at the side-impact structures of F1 cars.

They used the BMW-Sauber in which Polish driver Robert Kubica had a huge crash at the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix as the reference point.

Even before this, work was done on side impacts on V8 Supercars, involving Mellor and the Australian Institute of Motor Sport Safety (AIMSS), and some details of that can be found at aimss.com.au.

Existing systems in F1 cars use crushable tube structures attached to the side of the chassis but they can break during angular impacts.

The new system uses carbon-fibre structures fitted to each side of the car which do not shatter on impact but progressively crush and decelerate the car in a more controlled way.

It is said that the new structures have absorbed almost 40kJ of energy in both normal and oblique impact – a major improvement.

“We went back to basics to examine what a side-impact structure really needs to do in different types of accident,” Mellor said.

“We used Robert Kubica’s crash as a specific reference point since that was a major impact at an acute angle.”

Red Bull Racing’s head of car engineering Paul Monaghan said that “three teams ultimately submitted impact devices that were subjected to a physical test and ours was deemed to be the best of the bunch, so we pursued that device further”.

“The (carbon-fibre) tube has a common specification but how teams put it into their cars is entirely their business,” Monaghan said.

“The static tests that will be undertaken on the monocoque (chassis) will determine the strength of the mounts and make sure that they are sufficient to support the tube.

“After that it’s down to the teams as to how they integrate it and how they design their car around it.”

Monaghan said the new system most likely would save F1 teams money on crash-testing.

The greater and longer-term benefit though could be that the developments in F1 flow through to other forms of motorsport to prevent more side-impact deaths.

The Williams team will celebrate its 600th GP, even though it is only its 599th.

Rather than mark the milestone at the following race in Germany it wanted to do it on home soil and its FW35 cars will be emblazoned with the names of all 691 employees of Williams Grand Prix Engineering.

Over its 36 years the team has won 114 GPs, third behind only Ferrari and McLaren, and 16 world titles – nine constructors’ and seven drivers’, the first of those by Australian Alan Jones in 1980.

“Seventy eight teams have come and gone or changed ownership since our foundation and our longevity is a testament to the thousands of people who have sacrificed so much to keep us here,” founder Sir Frank Williams said.

“It seems only right to mark this milestone at the home of British motorsport.”

Williams is hoping for its first points of the season at this eighth GP of the season to add to the celebrations.

Its drivers, Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado – surprise winner of last year’s Spanish GP – and Finnish rookie Valterri Bottas – have not finished better than 11th in any race so far this year.

Ferrari has won the British GP 14 times, McLaren 12 and Williams 10, but Red Bull has been victorious three times in the past four years – its retiring Australian veteran Mark Webber twice, and Sebastian Vettel is 36 points clear of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso seemingly on the way to a fourth straight world title.

The 5.891km Silverstone circuit is the second longest in the world championship behind Belgium’s Spa.

Sunday’s GP will be the 250th for Pirelli, which – despite the fuss about the degradation of its rubber – looks set to remain F1’s monopoly tyre supplier next year.

All eyes will be on nine-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb’s visit to the famous mountain in the special Peugeot 208 T16 in which he will be out to break the nine-minute 43-second record of New Zealander Rhys Millen – defending his title in a Hyundai – up the climb of almost 20km, now fully sealed for the second year.

Meanwhile, Citroen has confirmed its long-anticipated entry into next year’s World Touring Car Championship, with Loeb among its drivers, while reaffirming its commitment to the struggling World Rally Championship – for which next year’s calendar has been delayed a month.

“Our involvement in the WTCC will help us develop the brand in promising growth markets such as China, Russia and South America,” Citroen said.

“The WTCC is based on several aspects that are essential to Citroen – extensive media coverage, regulations that keep costs down and a genuinely global race calendar.”

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