25/05/2017
NEWS STORY
Ahead of the Monaco weekend, the teams were ordered to modify their rear jacking points in respect of the horrific crash at Donington last month which resulted in rising F4 star Billy Monger losing both his legs.
Amidst fears that the design of the rear jack on the car he collided with might have contributed to the severity of his injuries, the FIA's safety director Laurent Mekies wrote to the teams asking them to modify their rear jacking points and advising that from now on these will be inspected by the FIA.
"Following several front-to-rear incidents over the past months in various single-seater categories, the FIA would like all F1 teams to ensure that their rear jacking point designs cannot act aggressively during such an incident," he wrote. "Considering the strength, shape and position of the jacking points, they may become one of the initial points of contact in a crash with another car and alter the performance of the crash structure of the other car.
"The use of aggressive designs will not be permitted from the Monaco GP onwards," he warned. "All jacking points used from that date must first be approved by the FIA technical department."
With a number of teams not needing to make any changes as their designs were deemed safe, the others made the relevant changes that enabled them to pass scrutineering.
Mekies suggested that a "non-aggressive" design constituted one where the rear jacking point would be "geometrically not the first point of contact between the nose and the RIS (rear impact structure)" and would "protrude no more than 45mm from surface of RIS."
Check out our Thursday gallery from Monaco, here.