(upbeat synth music)
- Racing is the most dangerous sport in the world.
The probability of getting into a crash is super high,
and every single crash has the potential to be fatal.
Yes, the microphone is here now.
But race car safety has come a long way
since racing's early days.
Just in recent memory, F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen walked away
from a crash in which he experienced 47 g's.
That's insane.
You know how many g's we have here on Earth?
One g.
But even with the last 100 years of innovations,
drivers are still in loads of danger.
So why don't race cars have airbags?
In this video, we're gonna take a look
at how safety features in race cars were innovated,
from the roll cage to the helmet,
to even something as small as the rear-view mirror.
We're gonna take a look at why those features are necessary
in World Rally Championship racing,
Formula One, and NASCAR, and how these features
have trickled down to the cars we drive today.
When auto racing first started,
safety was basically non-existent.
Cars were unreliable, open-cockpit missiles,
running around on primitive technology and skinny tires.
Most of the effort went into making cars faster,
and virtually no effort was put into making them safer.
Racing was considered a calculated risk for the drivers,
and death was an unspoken, very really possibility.
Every race could be their last.
The most dangerous sport has actually made everyday life
a lot safer for everyone around the world.
In fact, we can thank innovations in racing
for almost all the safety features we have
in our cars today.
All it took was a bunch of horrific crashes for us to learn.
Rear-view mirrors are crucial for defensive driving
and staying aware of your surroundings.
The first known instance of a race car driver
using a rear-view mirror was Ray Harroun
and his Marmon race car at the very first
Indianapolis 500 in 1911.
The mirror turned out to be useless during the race, though,
because the rough surface shook the mirror so hard
that Harroun couldn't focus on anything.
Whoops.
Rear-view mirrors have changed very little since then,
other than their placement.
Mostly, they've remained right outside the cockpit.
It doesn't benefit any car to not see what's behind them.
One device that has a directly measurable impact
on driver safety is the roll bar slash roll cage.
In the event of a car rolling over,
these devices literally shield the driver
from their surroundings.
Some of the first mandated uses of roll bars
were in Formula Three racing, dating as far back as 1948.
Roll bars become mandatory in the USAC Racing circuit
in 1959, and shortly after in Formula one,
following the move to mid-engine placement.
But for the better part of the '60s,
roll bars were basically useless in F1.
They were very low, and didn't protect
the driver very much in a rollover.
Modern F1 cars are built to exacting specifications,
and utilize the air intake as the rollover point
that protects the driver's head.
It doesn't seem like it'd be very strong,
but it's probably the strongest point on the entire car.
For cars that didn't have open cockpits,
there was the roll cage.
The FIA mandated that all cars
must use a roll cage or roll bar in 1971,
and since then, they've been getting stronger
and lighter ever since.
One type of racing that has immensely benefited
from the use of roll cages is rally racing.
They not only protect the driver
in the event of a crash or a rollover,
but they actually improve the handling
and performance of a car because of the added stiffness.
WRC driver Ott Tänak and his co-driver survived
a horrific crash at the Rally Monte Carlo earlier this year
thanks to their roll cage.
His Hyundai Veloster N flew off the road
going 110 miles an hour, but both driver and co-driver
walked away from the crash totally unharmed.
Roll cages set the stage for innovations
in unibody constructions found
in production cars for the regular consumer.
Stiffer cabin components not only protect drivers
in the event of rollovers,
but they provide stiffness and reduce body flexing,
which can be a drain on performance.
Before disc brakes were standard on most cars,
drum brakes were the primary means of stopping.
In the racing world, the first car to use disc brakes
was the BRM Type-15 in the late 1951 Formula One season.
A Jaguar C-Type equipped with disc brakes
won Le Mans back in 1953,
which is the same year that, for the first time,
a production car debuted with disc brakes,
dis, dis, disc brakes, on all four wheels.
There are many advantages disc brakes have over drum brakes,
but first, let's look at how they both work.
A drum brake uses a drum on the interior of the wheel hub.
When the brake pedal is pressed,
a set of shoes presses outwards
against the surface of that drum,
creating friction and slowing the car down.
A disc brake has a flat rotor connected to the wheel hub.
When the brake pedal is pressed,
a caliper pinches the rotor like a mechanical crab claw,
slowing the car down.
Disc brakes are way more efficient at dispersing heat,
and less likely to experience brake fade,
which is the loss of efficiency brakes experience
when something becomes superheated.
Something as small as driving over a puddle
in a car with drum brakes can lessen their effectiveness,
as water can splash inside the drum and make the shoes slip.
That sucks.
Nowadays, though, Formula One cars
use carbon composite discs and six-piston calipers.
The Brabham F1 team was the first
to use composite discs in 1976.
The composite showed an advantage
over other disc materials like steel or iron
because the carbon's exceptional thermal,
frictional, and anti-warping capabilities.
Just in the last 10 years at F1 competition,
brakes have gotten significantly better.
Brake technology from race cars
has made the technology in production cars much safer.
Modern sports cars exclusively use disc brakes,
and some use carbon ceramic brakes
that cost thousands of dollars to replace
and make a lot of noise compared to steel rotors,
which caused some Porsche owners to complain a few years ago
that their cars were too loud.
Look, you ordered the fancy brakes; now live with them.
Give me your carbon ceramics if you don't want them.
Good lord.
Brakes don't mean much without good tires,
and race tire technology has come a long way
in a relatively short amount of time.
There's a tire for every sort of weather condition,
driving style, and course.
One reason cars are safer now
is because tires have become more predictable.
Rubber compounds have been tested
and refined for decades now, and the result
is a tire that resists wear better, diverts water better,
and, most importantly, grips the track better.
Tire companies are constantly striving
to create the best tire for each application,
tweaking compounds and tread patterns
to optimize every aspect: the stiffness,
the heat threshold, the resistance, the resilience.
Pirelli supplies all the tires used in Formula One,
and every single tire is accounted for with a barcode
like they're in freaking "Hitman" or something.
Technically speaking, F1 teams don't own the tires,
they just lease them from Pirelli.
Pirelli have to do this
because the compounds they experiment with
could be taken by another company and profited from.
There is a legitimate concern
that a rival will get a piece of their tire
and reverse engineer the compound
by just picking up a little marble at the racetrack,
that's what they call the little rubber bits.
So it's in Pirelli's best interest
to make sure all these tires make their way back to the lab.
Even the ones that disintegrate
need to be picked up piece by piece
and returned to Pirelli.
That's nuts.
Of the earliest safety devices to appear in race cars
is one we take for granted today: seat belts.
Modern multi-point harnesses found in the highest level
of racing nowadays started as a simple two-point lap belt.
The widespread use of seat belts and harnesses in racing
didn't happen until the 1950s,
but even then, they weren't standardized.
It was commonly accepted that a crash would be safer
if the driver was ejected from the car,
which might otherwise trap them in flames.
Trapped in flames.
That sucks.
(heavy metal music)
Trapped in flames.
That's not even the most brutal I can go, dude.
(high-pitched tone)
It wasn't until physicians in the 1930s
started testing safety belts that they saw undeniable proof
that the restraint of a seat belt
was much safer than being flung out of a car.
Go figure.
But it still took a long time after that
to convince some drivers and racing teams
that it was in fact safer.
Although loosely enforced,
NASCAR started requiring safety belts since the 1940s.
Things got better in 1958 when a Swedish engineer at Volvo
by the name of Nils Bohlin invented
the three-point safety belt.
The addition of the second strap across the driver's torso
restrained the top half of the body
from whipping forward into the steering wheel.
Nils could have licensed his three-point seat belt
out to manufacturers and made a ton of money,
but he chose to leave the patent open
for other companies to use freely.
That's truly selfless.
The world thanks you, Nils.
While some race teams have historically been opposed
to increasing safety measures,
mainly because of the added cost,
some drivers have fought to have better safety standards.
We've all seen the old footage
of Le Mans drivers running to their cars,
starting, and peeling out, right?
Well, that tradition changed after 1969.
That year, Jacky Ickx had suffered the loss of his teammate,
and, as a result, protested the traditional start
over safety concerns.
Instead of running over to his car
like the rest of the drivers,
Jacky walked over to his GT40,
and took extra time to put on his safety belt.
He may have lost his starting position,
but he wanted to prove that it was better
to be safe than sorry.
His point was further emphasized a short time later
when British driver John Wolfe slid out into the grass
and crashed his Porsche 917 on the first lap of the race.
Because Wolfe's Porsche didn't have a seat belt,
he was ejected from his car and killed.
Jackie Ickx won Le Mans that year,
proving his point that safety was worth the extra effort,
and the next year, the rules were changed
to make the start of the race safer.
(upbeat music)
Damn.
Another Jackie, the legendary race driver
Sir Jackie Stewart, pushed for improved safety
a few years earlier in Formula One,
which led to the mandated use of the six-point harness.
Nowadays, racing harnesses in Formula One
have to keep the driver snug in their cockpit
while dealing with more force than ever before.
Hard braking in an F1 car can produce as much as five g's.
If the driver didn't have something holding them back,
that force would send them straight into the steering wheel.
Modern harnesses are able to withstand a load
of almost 10 tons of force.
The harness also needs to be able
to stretch and give a little in the event of a crash
so that the blow is softened.
Even just a few millimeters can drastically cut down
the amount of bodily harm.
But drivers also have to be able
to get out of their car quickly in case it starts on fire,
and that's why modern racing harnesses
have a quick release so drivers don't have
to fumble around with six or seven straps,
it's just a quick boop, and then they're running away
from their flaming car.
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid
of the pain of being a man.
What is this show?
If you guys wanna see me release
a Finnish melodeath-inspired record,
give this video a like, dude.
I think we can do it.
I'm gonna listen back to those vocals and see.
I'm gonna practice.
Yeah, I'll practice.
I'm gonna make sure the camera's still rolling.
Yep, we're good.
(high-pitched tone)
One of the most significant safety innovations
in the history of racing is the helmet.
(upbeat music)
Helmets have been around in racing since the beginning,
but they've evolved a lot from the cloth skull caps
of the early 20th century.
Thin leather helmets and goggles were common,
but didn't provide much protection at all.
I can't imagine why.
In the 1920s and '30s, some drivers
used football helmets or firefighter helmets
because they protected better than the racing helmets.
We actually made a really cool evolution of racing helmets
a long time ago, but it still whips ass,
and you should check it out.
I'll put it right there.
Modern Formula One helmets are the safest they've ever been.
The outer shell is made of carbon fiber,
and has small polycarbonate fins
to direct air around the driver's head,
because in open-wheel racing, the driver's head
affects the overall aerodynamics of the car.
That's insane.
Also, you're going so fast
that it might pull the helmet off your head,
so those little fins keep it down.
It's like having a spoiler on your helmet.
The inside of the helmet is Kevlar,
molded around the specific driver's head.
The visor also has multiple transparent sheets
that can be pulled off in case debris
clouds the driver's vision.
You know, tear-offs, you've probably seen them.
After Formula One driver Felipe Massa
took a spring to the dome at 160 miles an hour
while qualifying at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix,
a small carbon fiber shield
was added to the top of the visor.
The force of the spring hitting his helmet
was equivalent to being shot with an AK-47.
Luckily, Massa recovered and continued his career
after the accident; he actually retired twice.
To help the driver breathe,
there are also ports for ventilation,
but when it comes to airflow,
NASCAR helmets have F1 beat by a country mile.
Modern NASCAR helmets have a tube at the back
that connects to a fresh air intake.
It flows through the tube
and around the driver's head during a race,
and that is crucial when the temperature in stock cars
climbs past 130 degrees in the (bleep) pit,
and up to 170 degrees by the pedals.
Good lord.
Race drivers are known to lose
up to 10 pounds of body weight from sweat during a race.
In addition to a helmet, modern drivers wear a HANS device,
or head and neck support.
This device restrains the head
from whipping forward in a crash.
The straps and harness help to reduce neck tension 81%,
and a total neck load of 78%.
When unrestrained, drivers can suffer
a basilar skull fracture, which is tragically what happened
to NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt in 2001.
Following Earnhardt's passing,
NASCAR mandated that all drivers wear a HANS device.
Mercedes helped to develop the HANS device
that's been used in F1 since 2003.
They're different systems than the ones used in NASCAR,
but they work on the same principle.
So why is that, among all this innovation
striving towards the safest vehicle possible,
that race cars don't have airbags?
Well, there are two different approaches to safety
that fill two different needs,
and to understand why race cars don't have airbags,
you have to understand what those needs are.
Race cars have different safety needs
than passenger cars meant for the road.
Comfort isn't as big a concern in a race car
because it's all about going fast,
but comfort is a huge concern in road cars.
You need room to move around, stretch,
observe your surroundings, grab your coffee,
adjust your mirror, whatever.
All that requires space to move around.
The more room you have in your car,
the further your body is going to travel
in the event of a crash.
But that means there's more time for your body to slow down,
and that's what safety features in passenger cars do,
they slow your rate of deceleration.
The crumple zone is the first area of impact.
It takes a lot of the force of the crash
and slows the car down,
dispersing the force over the whole car.
As your body goes forward, the seatbelt restrains you
while also giving a little bit of slack
to slow your body down even more.
As your body continues to move forward,
the airbag expands to meet your chest and face
and absorb that impact,
hopefully slowing your body down enough
that the next impact, your organs hitting your skeleton,
doesn't completely turn you into jelly.
Sounds delicious; actually very uncomfortable.
A race car has most of these features,
but heavy-duty versions of them
to deal with the extra force of going 200 miles an hour.
Race cars have crumple zones, much like road cars,
that help disperse some of that energy,
but that's where the two diverge.
The biggest difference between the two
is the amount of space between the driver's seat
and the steering wheel.
Race cars are built for speed,
with driver comfort being less important.
If the cockpit had any more space,
that would directly impact the weight
and aerodynamics of the car,
so the cockpit is engineered to be as compact as possible.
Racing harnesses are designed
to restrain a driver much more than a normal seat belt,
plus the HANS device.
This is all to say that the driver
is not moving much at all, so if an airbag went off,
it wouldn't do its intended duty and slow the driver down.
It might not even reach the driver.
An airbag would probably make
driving an F1 car more dangerous.
Rally drivers often hit curbs and get in small accidents,
but keep driving as if their car is total fine.
The truth is minor impacts could set that airbag off,
obstructing the driver's view
when they might need to get out of the way,
and then they'd probably need
to stop and replace the module,
costing them precious time on the track.
And then there's the issue of engine fires.
If a driver crashed, and the airbag went off,
it would also make it a lot harder
to undo the harness and get out of the car
in the event of a fire,
and that's probably the worst way you can go.
Trapped in a burning car, no thank you.
On that horrifying note, thank you so much for watching.
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Begone, see you next time.