30/06/2004
NEWS STORY
Speaking following today's meeting of the World Motorsport council, FIA President Max Mosley once again warned that F1 cars must be slowed down, before there is a serious injury, or worse.
Talking on the same day that it was revealed that Ralf Schumacher is out of action for three months, as a result of injuries sustained in the recent United States GP, Mosley warned that cars are too fast.
"There is no doubt that they are now too fast," he told Reuters. "We must pull it back. It's a question of probability, the faster the cars go, the greater the probability that someone will be hurt or killed. We now feel that the probability is too high."
"Ralf was 78G," he said of the Indianapolis crash, "Massa was 113G," he added, referring to the Sauber driver's crash at Canada a week earlier.
"In Massa's case, if he hadn't had the latest HANS system and the other precautions, his head would have hit the steering wheel with a force 80 percent greater than we believe to be the borderline for injury. He would probably have been seriously hurt. We are at the limit. If we go on like this someone will get hurt.
"All the indications now are that we are pushing up against the barriers of what is possible and we should pull back."
Curiously, Mosley failed to mention the left-rear wheel that became detached from Massa's car and ended up in the grandstands, though thankfully no-one was injured. Nor did Mr Mosley mention the fact that Ralf's accident, like Fernando Alonso's moments earlier, had been caused by shards of carbon-fibre, strewn on the track following a first corner accident.
As can be seen elsewhere, times have tumbled in recent years, a fact that seemingly has the FIA running scared.
"We can accommodate a 10th or two each year by improving the safety precautions on the cars and improving the facilities at the circuits," he said, "but it's very difficult to deal with increased speed in the order of a second or more a year."
The FIA has now given the Technical Working Group a period in which it must come up with realistic ways in which speeds can be reduced, otherwise it will implement its own measures.
While it will no doubt take the Technical Working Group months to come to a decision, pitpass readers would be able to offer a solution in minutes.
That's two to be going on with.