159 replies to this topic

[midgrid]

Good on Murray and Martin for emphasizing what a weird and awful day David Coulthard has had, as he recovers from a third(!) incident of the day.

If this were a BTCC race, his car would be held together with duct tape, and his rear bumper would be trailing round after him.

[midgrid]

Eddie Jordan gambolling like a newborn lamb!

[Bleu]

At least that time Eddie got in time to attend podium ceremony. In the old podium I remember Ron Dennis appearing once in the middle of national anthems and once there was no representative for team so Kimi got both drivers' and constructors' award.

[PayasYouRace]

They still had the proper ending to God Save the Queen then. For years now they've had a recording which goes freestyling a bit at the end.

[TomNokoe]

I can only imagine the pure vindicated jubilation you would've felt as a Damon fan back then

[Bleu]

Red Bull and Stewart are the same team.

 

Working from the same base but their statistics are counted separately.

[ANF]

The wheel tethers were first introduced for the 1998 season.

Atlas F1 says:
1999: "A cable must tether each wheel to the chassis to prevent it flying off or contacting the driver's head, in case of accident."
http://www.atlasf1.c...ews/safety.html

After further research, this is correct.

It looks like quite a few online sources are wrong or at least badly worded!

I think I have the 1998 and 1999 technical regulations on another drive...

http://www.formula1-...el_tethers.html
 
Thank god, not losing it yet.....

Now this is strange...

I found my copy of the 1998 technical regulations. And I also found the Internet Archive page from which I downloaded it some years ago: http://web.archive.o...tec/F1tec-a.htm

The page was archived in February 1998 and the document says, "Last update 1st January 1998".

And the regulations for 1998 include the following article:
 

14.7 Wheel retention :

All cars, whilst under their own power, must be fitted with devices which will retain any wheel in the event of it coming loose.

After the wheel nut is fastened, these devices must be manually fitted in a separate action to that of securing the wheel nut.

The wording was identical in the 2000 regulations. (I haven't been able to find the 1999 technical regulations with the Wayback Machine.)

However, I also found this article:
 

"On the fateful weekend at Imola in 1994, when Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna were killed, a collision on the startline between Pedro Lamy's Lotus and JJ Lehto's Benetton resulted in a wheel being thrown over a grandstand and hitting a policeman. That prompted the FIA to investigate means of preventing wheels from being torn off completely. The multi-car accident at the start of the 1998 Belgian GP gave the investigation further impetus, and led directly to the introduction of wheel tethers for the 1999 season. These are steel cables designed to prevent wheels flying off by linking the wheel hubs to the chassis."
By David Tremayne, March 21, 2001 https://www.grandpri...microscope.html

As well as this one:
 

Formula1 Technical Regulations for 2000: "After one year's application, judged as being a big step forward in controlling loose wheels, wheel tether regulations have been tidied up, but without major changes."
By Peter Wright, January 5, 2000 https://www.grandpri...s-for-2000.html

So was it 1998 or 1999? Maybe the tethers were supposed to be introduced in 1998 but didn't appear until 1999?

I'll be back with more... maybe.

Edited by ANF, 27 May 2020 - 22:02.

[PayasYouRace]

That article 14.7 isn’t referring to wheel tethers. It’s referring to the retaining lock on the wheel nut that you see the mechanic pull after he attaches the wheel with the air gun at a pit stop. They are there to help ensure the wheel stays attached to the axle.

 

The wheel tethers are something else and are there to ensure that the suspension upright stays with the car when the wishbones break in a crash.

[ANF]

That article 14.7 isn’t referring to wheel tethers. It’s referring to the retaining lock on the wheel nut that you see the mechanic pull after he attaches the wheel with the air gun at a pit stop. They are there to help ensure the wheel stays attached to the axle.
 
The wheel tethers are something else and are there to ensure that the suspension upright stays with the car when the wishbones break in a crash.

Aha! Mystery solved: The tethers, or cables, were introduced in 1999.

This is from the 2000 technical regulations (and it wasn't there in 1998):

10.3 Suspension members :
...
10.3.4 ) In order to prevent a wheel becoming separated in the event of all suspension members connecting it to the car failing, cables must be fitted which connect each wheel/upright assembly to the main structure of the car. Under such circumstances, the design of the cable and it's attachments must be such that no wheel may make contact with the driver's head.

The length of each cable should be no longer than that required to allow normal suspension movement .

Each complete cable restraint system, including its attachments, must have a minimum tensile strength of 50kN and the cables must be flexible with a minimum diameter of 8mm.

(By the way, even Giorgio Piola confused the cables with the wheel retention. In the New Regulations chapter in his end-of-season Formula 1 '99 Technical Analysis he described the 7 mm cables that were introduced in 1999, but he referred to them as "Wheel Retention (Art. 14.7)". Interestingly, he also wrote: "Generally these cables passed between the suspension arms and were fixed to the chassis as shown in the drawing. This norm attracted criticism because in certain cases, the wheel trapped against the chassis during the impact sawed into the survival cell, as happened with Zonta's BAR in Brazil and Schumacher's Ferrari at Silverstone.")

Edited by ANF, 28 May 2020 - 08:44.

[midgrid]

Tomorrow's recent-race-re-run is the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix.  I'm no longer going to start separate threads for the recent re-runs, as I don't think there's enough interest.