Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFormula 1

Smedley wary of canopy drawbacks

Williams head of vehicle performance Rob Smedley says the negatives of a canopy need to be removed before F1 could move towards closed cockpits.

The debate over open cockpits was reopened after Justin Wilson was killed in an IndyCar race in August, with the former Minardi and Jaguar driver struck by crash debris. With a number of drivers and key figures in F1 now calling for the introduction of canopies, the FIA is investigating ways of protecting drivers' heads.

Smedley is not against covered cockpits but he says implementing a canopy would lead to further challenges regarding safety.

“One of the main considerations for a closed canopy is, we must not lose sight what we’re doing it for, which is safety," Smedley said. "First and foremost, it’s driver’s safety. One of the aspects of a closed cockpit is the driver still has to be able to exit from the car in all cases. That probably is the biggest engineering challenge.

"Putting the closed cockpit on the car itself, doesn’t pose a particular headache from an engineering point of view. Where the more lateral thinking comes in, is that the driver still has to be able to escape, he still has to be able to get out of the car. That includes when the car rolls over as well. You have to make sure that in that situation the driver can still exit, that there is still some mechanism that you can still get out of the car.

"Equally that the medical team can still get inside a cockpit, that they’re still able to access a driver very, very quickly. So it will throw up engineering and technical questions, which will need innovative and lateral thinking but that shouldn’t stop us doing it.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.