After seeing a see-through diagram of the Cooper T62 F3 car and,specifically, the position of the fueltank... after reading the book Black Noon by Art Ganer, I wondered: when was this technology of self-sealing tanks actually available?
A short survey taught me that techniques were already invented at the end of the first worldwar, so about 1917. Certainly after the second world war most people who were acquainted with the airplane-industrty must have been aware of them.
https://en.wikipedia...aling_fuel_tank
I googled it but could not find when the first motorsport-entrepeneurs started to implement them. My guess is way after the sixties perhaps even AFTER the early seventies (if I think about the deahts of Piers Courage and Roger Williamson at Zandvoort, the accident of Icx at Jarama, Peterson in Monza).
Am I correct? Or is it perhaps the case that constructors started using the self-sealing tanks immediately but that the accidents in motorsport were just so different that the techniques of protection against bullets and flak could not protect the drivers from fire?
I am curious if any of the technological experts roaming these shores have an idea about that.
Edited by Nemo1965, 27 February 2019 - 11:02.