Marshal helmets in monza

[Greem]

Thinking laterally about it for a moment - someone up thread mentioned risk assessments.

Monza, as we all know, is the fastest & most "flat out" circuit on the F1 calendar. Being in park land, it always looks to me like the straights particularly have very little run-away room behind the armco. From a risk management perspective, if an accident happens on the straights it's likely to be very very fast indeed, with the consequent shrapnel all shifting very quickly through the air.

Now being hit in the head (or anywhere else for the matter) by, say, a track-rod end or a shard of bodywork isn't going to be very nice - and the helmets *might* help protect against that.
However, it's more likely that in the scuffle to get away people are going to throw themselves at the floor very hard and in all likelihood sustain a head injury hitting the floor, or run into a tree, or a fencepost, or a colleague... you get the idea.

Obviously we haven't seen the risk assessment that resulted in the helmets being worn, but I can see plenty of perfectly sane reasons why they might have to.

I wonder if a helmet would have protected our colleague who face-planted pushing a car at McLeans at Donington the other week?

[SouthportFC Fan]

Originally Posted by Greem

I wonder if a helmet would have protected our colleague who face-planted pushing a car at McLeans at Donington the other week?

Only if it had been a full face one....

[thepits!]

Originally Posted by Terrible-Tones

It is clear that the helmets provided for the WEC were wholly inadequate for the task at hand. They were indeed builders helmets providing brilliant protection if something was dropped on your head from height (!), but none at all if you were hit, fell over, or had to run anywhere! In fact this year they didn't even appear until after the race!

I agree the ones provided for the WEC are useless - slightly less so this year as we had straps, unlike last year when they were just balanced on our heads.

p.s. it was Blancpain that they didn't appear until after the racing

Originally Posted by Terrible-Tones

I do agree, having seen the accident that preempted this move on the continent, (basically a car came in but its engine stopped, so it was rolling - fast - and a photographer didn't hear it come up behind him, he was hit hard and went over the car and hit his head on the concrete), that it might be an idea, but the helmets have to be fit for purpose. You also need to be able to wear a radio headset with them.

The reason WEC introduced them was because a French cameraman was hit by a car and banged his head, so now everyone in the lane has to wear them....

Except, and I quote from the official WEC briefing, "For certain [French] cameramen who can't wear them as they would be unable to work their camera" - that makes sense doesn't it?

[McSatan]

I bashed my knee once, on a pointy bit at the back of a Formula Vee car which hadn't quite come to rest when I got to it. It made a little hole which bled quite a bit. So we should probably all wear skateboard style armoured knee and elbow protectors in case of similar mishaps. Or something.

[MagnetON]

Originally Posted by McSatan

I bashed my knee once, on a pointy bit at the back of a Formula Vee car which hadn't quite come to rest when I got to it. It made a little hole which bled quite a bit. So we should probably all wear skateboard style armoured knee and elbow protectors in case of similar mishaps. Or something.

My rescue overalls have internal pockets that will take knee pads. Very handy for kneeling down in gravel traps etc. Next time I get a set of custom made overalls I'll be asking for the same pocketing.

[Shelagh]

We, too, commented on the helmets at Monza but then noticed that at one of the flag points they were just leaning over the Armco to wave the blue (not sure how many layers there were but looked like 2).

Much as I hate it, would you rather have a light helmet or the "protection" of the fencing that's been installed everywhere in this country? Some of it makes flagging extremely difficult (impossible?) but in general I think it has to win.

Either that, or we all turn out in full armour like medieval knights. Might slow us down getting to incidents though - unless we get the horses as well.

(Sorry - being whimsical.)

[thepits!]

Originally Posted by Shelagh

.....or we all turn out in full armour like medieval knights. Might slow us down getting to incidents though - unless we get the horses as well. (Sorry - being whimsical.)

great idea - have to keep the horses off the track though otherwise you'd be spending all day waving the slippery surface flag

[SouthportFC Fan]

Originally Posted by thepits!

great idea - have to keep the horses off the track though otherwise you'd be spending all day waving the slippery surface flag

How about bikes ? Maybe the 24hr bike race at Silverstone next week is a secret test session !! Is the FIA aware ?

[Robin_D]

The 24 Hour bike race next week is actually cancelled. The FIA obviously became aware

I wouldn't mind wearing a helmet or knee pads come to think of it.

[SouthportFC Fan]

Are you sure it wasn't cancelled because the riders couldn't commit to not exceeding the track limits !! Or was there a doubt about tyre wear and the kerbs ??

Seriously, I can think of one occasion when I thought about wearing kneepads in future and that was an incident where I ended up on my knees responding to Mike Lyons sticking his 458 into the tyres at Copse. Running out to him, I discovered that a single layer of Litag on a concrete base has the same coefficient of friction as ball bearings on glass !!

A resultant small hole in brand new overalls and my left knee occurred. No big deal !!

[Greem]

Originally Posted by SouthportFC Fan

Are you sure it wasn't cancelled because the riders couldn't commit to not exceeding the track limits !! Or was there a doubt about tyre wear and the kerbs ??

Off-topic for the thread, but on-topic for the cycle ride... It was cancelled because the organiser didn't pay Silverstone the circuit hire costs, and subsequently went into liquidation - without refunding the entry fees.

More here. And a lot more on various other forums if you have a Google.

[SouthportFC Fan]

Ooh, naughty !!