Cultural Psychology
From the beginning of the World Formula One Championship in 1950 to 1980, drivers were killed with what would seem shocking regularity today. Sometimes multiple drivers were killed in a given year (Three drivers in 1955, four drivers in 1958, three in 1960, etc.). Some fatalities were down to mechanical failure and some to crashes. The culture was different during this period than it is today. Following WWII, there was a renewed zest for life and living from a culture that had faced death head-on during the war.
By the 1970s and 1980s however, the general culture began to focus more and more on safety as its values turned from the acceptance of death and risk to an aversion to them.
By the 1980s (because of calls throughout the 1970s for improved safety), circuit safety had improved and the cars were engineered to a higher degree of survivability using composites like carbon fiber. The result, as shown in the graph above, was that deaths became rarer.
At this stage, I believe F1 had actually reached a reasonable safety/risk equilibrium. The car and circuit improvements made F1 seem reasonable. i.e. the Car safety cells would survive crashes and the circuits didn’t have cliffs dropping off one side of the track.
From the mid-1980s everything ticked along reasonably well until 1994 when Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger were killed at Imola. Between 1982 and 1994, twelve years passed (since the last racing deaths) which gave the impression the improved car technology and circuits had all but beaten death.
Breaking Point
I believe Imola 1994 was the end of Formula One in psychological terms. Such was the impact of losing two drivers including the potentially best driver ever in Ayrton Senna that I believe the governing body and the participants in the sport lost their will to accept death as an inevitable part of the sport. They began to consciously engineer away the risk of the sport at every possible turn. Because deaths hadn’t occurred in such a long time or to such a legendary driver as Senna, the fear of death had crept in.
…the governing body and the participants in the sport lost their will to accept death as an inevitable part of the sport. They began to consciously engineer away the risk of the sport at every possible turn.
In a way, this new safety mission was simply playing catch-up to the general culture which had long become hyper-sensitive to the death of anyone by accidental means.
Road car safety had already followed this trend when you consider the implementation of numerous safety improvements between 1970 and 2000 (i.e. Airbags, side-impact)
However, I believe the safety culture in racing was destructive to the meaningfulness of the sport. While greater and greater safety improvements were made after 1994, they could ultimately do nothing to stop a driver from dying (i.e. Jules Bianchi) and many others from being injured. They only delayed the inevitable and potentially lowered the numbers.
Even lowering the numbers is debatable, as the the safety improvements gave drivers a renewed sense of invincibility (A phenomenon similar to that seen in the general public with mandatory helmet laws where kids do ever more risky behaviors because they are “protected”)
One way or another, the improvements did give the fan base the impression that F1 was being sanitized of the risk, bravery and courage associated with its historic glory and I believe this is why many today see no point in watching F1. The car impact energy absorption improvements were positive, but great circuits were emasculated or abandoned and technology was regulated to inhibit speed in the name of safety.
Without the unconscious perception of real life-and-death risk, I believe F1 can do anything they want with the car, the format or the track locations. It will not matter as F1 will be perceived as a safe, unremarkable and increasingly controlled activity.
The Physical Technology of the Cars and Their Operation
What is also evident to me is that the continued efforts to make today’s drivers into heroes doesn’t work if it looks too easy, controlled or manipulated. Race wins by drivers in computer-controlled cars on emasculated circuits with polished podiums will never register with the competitive soul of humanity.
From the tire on up, the F1 car needs to be viewed as the platform on which the talent of the driver is showcased. It should never be hidden or distorted by gimmickry or computer and servo control control between the driver’s physical inputs and the tires.
Race fans need the extraordinary to engage them. That is why they pay money to see a sport of daring and real talent—they expect the risk that is taken to be as extraordinary as the pay the drivers receive and they expect their drivers to drive the car—not a computer. If they don’t see that, there is very little reason to pay.
Formula One’s Future
Sadly, the glory of the Formula One of the past may never be achieved again–but I hope it is.
Our culture is so politically correct and safety-driven that the minute a danger is identified, it must be engineered away to (fallaciously) ensure that nobody ever dies again. However, living life in a safety meeting never seemed worthwhile to me and I believe it goes against the very nature of race driving. The real possibility of death is the unwritten ingredient in the greatest achievements of man—would as many have stood in awe of the moon landings if the astronauts were guaranteed to come home safely?
The real possibility of death is the unwritten ingredient in the greatest achievements of man
To me, race tracks must be beautiful and unforgiving to errors. The pre-1994 Imola, the old Nordschleiffe, Spa Francorchamps, Monaco and the old Hockenheim are favourites of mine. Not ironically, many of the best drivers love the most challenging, elevation-changing, natural, historic and unforgiving of the circuits as well.
However being as I doubt new tracks will ever be risky again, the next best option would be to strip the cars of the computers that aid in their driving and remove the radio dependency except in the cases of emergencies. If the driver exceeds the limits of the track and ends up on the paved parking lots they now call run-off areas, they should be given a serious time penalty or excluded altogether. That type of penalty, while artificial in it’s own right would at least increase the stakes and decrease the impact of race track sanitizing.
…computers sensing and controlling of the car is wrong…The driver must drive the car on their own.
There must be an admission that using any new control technology available today is simply bad for a sport of drivers. Saying that is not a bad thing—massive horsepower can still be generated, but computers sensing and controlling of the car is wrong.
The driver must drive the car on their own. Simplified regulations must place emphasis on driver skill.
If I were to describe my ideal F1 car it would be wide and low (Like the early 1990s), with a powerful sound (Yah, I know, sound is lost power but if you care that much about efficiency, then Formula E is more your style anyway). My wish list would also include manually-shifted (i.e. No computer involvement) transmissions, telemetry download available only while the car is in the pits, and fixed underbody aero or wings. Gimmicks like DRS would have to go.
Watch this video of the McLaren MP4/5 of Ayrton Senna at Suzuka Japan in 1989. This onboard footage showcases a wild beast ridden by a warrior…
The visceral appeal of the racing in this video makes for a stunning contrast to the super efficient, quiet, computer-controlled techno-wonder cars of today. Just look at how Senna shifts with his right hand while going around a corner at nearly 250 kph!
Insofar as drivers with personality—I hold no hope. Sponsors sell an image that is as sanitized as the “sport”, and therefore the “Bad boy” will at best be a concoction of the sponsor’s marketing people.
I think the podium should be a place to celebrate and the interview room a place to answer the hard questions from a gallery of knowledgeable press on live TV.
And what about the pit girls? Well, they should keep doing what they’ve been doing all along. They’re the one thing F1 doesn’t need to change.