(upbeat synth music) - Racing is the most
dangerous sport in the world. The probability of getting
into a crash is super high, and every single crash has
the potential to be fatal. Yes, the microphone is here now. But race car safety has come a long way since racing's early days. Just in recent memory, F1 driver
Kimi Raikkonen walked away from a crash in which
he experienced 47 g's. That's insane. You know how many g's
we have here on Earth? One g. But even with the last
100 years of innovations, drivers are still in loads of danger. So why don't race cars have airbags? In this video, we're gonna take a look at how safety features in
race cars were innovated, from the roll cage to the helmet, to even something as small
as the rear-view mirror. We're gonna take a look at why
those features are necessary in World Rally Championship racing, Formula One, and NASCAR,
and how these features have trickled down to
the cars we drive today. When auto racing first started, safety was basically non-existent. Cars were unreliable,
open-cockpit missiles, running around on primitive
technology and skinny tires. Most of the effort went
into making cars faster, and virtually no effort was
put into making them safer. Racing was considered a
calculated risk for the drivers, and death was an unspoken,
very really possibility. Every race could be their last. The most dangerous sport has
actually made everyday life a lot safer for everyone around the world. In fact, we can thank
innovations in racing for almost all the safety features we have in our cars today. All it took was a bunch of
horrific crashes for us to learn. Rear-view mirrors are
crucial for defensive driving and staying aware of your surroundings. The first known instance
of a race car driver using a rear-view mirror was Ray Harroun and his Marmon race car at the very first Indianapolis 500 in 1911. The mirror turned out to be
useless during the race, though, because the rough surface
shook the mirror so hard that Harroun couldn't focus on anything. Whoops. Rear-view mirrors have changed
very little since then, other than their placement. Mostly, they've remained
right outside the cockpit. It doesn't benefit any car to
not see what's behind them. One device that has a
directly measurable impact on driver safety is the
roll bar slash roll cage. In the event of a car rolling over, these devices literally shield the driver from their surroundings. Some of the first
mandated uses of roll bars were in Formula Three racing,
dating as far back as 1948. Roll bars become mandatory
in the USAC Racing circuit in 1959, and shortly after in Formula one, following the move to
mid-engine placement. But for the better part of the '60s, roll bars were basically useless in F1. They were very low, and didn't protect the driver very much in a rollover. Modern F1 cars are built
to exacting specifications, and utilize the air intake
as the rollover point that protects the driver's head. It doesn't seem like it'd be very strong, but it's probably the strongest
point on the entire car. For cars that didn't have open cockpits, there was the roll cage. The FIA mandated that all cars must use a roll cage or roll bar in 1971, and since then, they've
been getting stronger and lighter ever since. One type of racing that
has immensely benefited from the use of roll
cages is rally racing. They not only protect the driver in the event of a crash or a rollover, but they actually improve the handling and performance of a car
because of the added stiffness. WRC driver Ott Tänak and
his co-driver survived a horrific crash at the Rally
Monte Carlo earlier this year thanks to their roll cage. His Hyundai Veloster N flew off the road going 110 miles an hour, but
both driver and co-driver walked away from the
crash totally unharmed. Roll cages set the stage for innovations in unibody constructions found in production cars for
the regular consumer. Stiffer cabin components
not only protect drivers in the event of rollovers, but they provide stiffness
and reduce body flexing, which can be a drain on performance. Before disc brakes were
standard on most cars, drum brakes were the
primary means of stopping. In the racing world, the
first car to use disc brakes was the BRM Type-15 in the
late 1951 Formula One season. A Jaguar C-Type equipped with disc brakes won Le Mans back in 1953, which is the same year
that, for the first time, a production car debuted with disc brakes, dis, dis, disc brakes, on all four wheels. There are many advantages disc
brakes have over drum brakes, but first, let's look
at how they both work. A drum brake uses a drum on
the interior of the wheel hub. When the brake pedal is pressed, a set of shoes presses outwards against the surface of that drum, creating friction and
slowing the car down. A disc brake has a flat rotor
connected to the wheel hub. When the brake pedal is pressed, a caliper pinches the rotor
like a mechanical crab claw, slowing the car down. Disc brakes are way more
efficient at dispersing heat, and less likely to experience brake fade, which is the loss of
efficiency brakes experience when something becomes superheated. Something as small as
driving over a puddle in a car with drum brakes can
lessen their effectiveness, as water can splash inside the
drum and make the shoes slip. That sucks. Nowadays, though, Formula One cars use carbon composite discs
and six-piston calipers. The Brabham F1 team was the first to use composite discs in 1976. The composite showed an advantage over other disc materials
like steel or iron because the carbon's exceptional thermal, frictional, and anti-warping capabilities. Just in the last 10
years at F1 competition, brakes have gotten significantly better. Brake technology from race cars has made the technology in
production cars much safer. Modern sports cars
exclusively use disc brakes, and some use carbon ceramic brakes that cost thousands of dollars to replace and make a lot of noise
compared to steel rotors, which caused some Porsche owners
to complain a few years ago that their cars were too loud. Look, you ordered the fancy
brakes; now live with them. Give me your carbon ceramics
if you don't want them. Good lord. Brakes don't mean much without good tires, and race tire technology
has come a long way in a relatively short amount of time. There's a tire for every
sort of weather condition, driving style, and course. One reason cars are safer now is because tires have
become more predictable. Rubber compounds have been tested and refined for decades
now, and the result is a tire that resists wear
better, diverts water better, and, most importantly,
grips the track better. Tire companies are constantly striving to create the best tire
for each application, tweaking compounds and tread patterns to optimize every aspect: the stiffness, the heat threshold, the
resistance, the resilience. Pirelli supplies all the
tires used in Formula One, and every single tire is
accounted for with a barcode like they're in freaking
"Hitman" or something. Technically speaking, F1
teams don't own the tires, they just lease them from Pirelli. Pirelli have to do this because the compounds they experiment with could be taken by another
company and profited from. There is a legitimate concern that a rival will get
a piece of their tire and reverse engineer the compound by just picking up a little
marble at the racetrack, that's what they call
the little rubber bits. So it's in Pirelli's best interest to make sure all these tires
make their way back to the lab. Even the ones that disintegrate need to be picked up piece by piece and returned to Pirelli. That's nuts. Of the earliest safety
devices to appear in race cars is one we take for
granted today: seat belts. Modern multi-point harnesses
found in the highest level of racing nowadays started as
a simple two-point lap belt. The widespread use of seat
belts and harnesses in racing didn't happen until the 1950s, but even then, they weren't standardized. It was commonly accepted
that a crash would be safer if the driver was ejected from the car, which might otherwise trap them in flames. Trapped in flames. That sucks. (heavy metal music) Trapped in flames. That's not even the most
brutal I can go, dude. (high-pitched tone) It wasn't until physicians in the 1930s started testing safety belts
that they saw undeniable proof that the restraint of a seat belt was much safer than
being flung out of a car. Go figure. But it still took a long time after that to convince some drivers and racing teams that it was in fact safer. Although loosely enforced, NASCAR started requiring
safety belts since the 1940s. Things got better in 1958 when
a Swedish engineer at Volvo by the name of Nils Bohlin invented the three-point safety belt. The addition of the second
strap across the driver's torso restrained the top half of the body from whipping forward
into the steering wheel. Nils could have licensed
his three-point seat belt out to manufacturers
and made a ton of money, but he chose to leave the patent open for other companies to use freely. That's truly selfless. The world thanks you, Nils. While some race teams have
historically been opposed to increasing safety measures, mainly because of the added cost, some drivers have fought to
have better safety standards. We've all seen the old footage of Le Mans drivers running to their cars, starting, and peeling out, right? Well, that tradition changed after 1969. That year, Jacky Ickx had
suffered the loss of his teammate, and, as a result, protested
the traditional start over safety concerns. Instead of running over to his car like the rest of the drivers, Jacky walked over to his GT40, and took extra time to
put on his safety belt. He may have lost his starting position, but he wanted to prove that it was better to be safe than sorry. His point was further
emphasized a short time later when British driver John
Wolfe slid out into the grass and crashed his Porsche 917
on the first lap of the race. Because Wolfe's Porsche
didn't have a seat belt, he was ejected from his car and killed. Jackie Ickx won Le Mans that year, proving his point that safety
was worth the extra effort, and the next year, the rules were changed to make the start of the race safer. (upbeat music) Damn. Another Jackie, the legendary race driver Sir Jackie Stewart,
pushed for improved safety a few years earlier in Formula One, which led to the mandated
use of the six-point harness. Nowadays, racing harnesses in Formula One have to keep the driver
snug in their cockpit while dealing with more
force than ever before. Hard braking in an F1 car can
produce as much as five g's. If the driver didn't have
something holding them back, that force would send them
straight into the steering wheel. Modern harnesses are
able to withstand a load of almost 10 tons of force. The harness also needs to be able to stretch and give a little
in the event of a crash so that the blow is softened. Even just a few millimeters
can drastically cut down the amount of bodily harm. But drivers also have to be able to get out of their car quickly
in case it starts on fire, and that's why modern racing harnesses have a quick release so drivers don't have to fumble around with six or seven straps, it's just a quick boop, and
then they're running away from their flaming car. He who makes a beast
out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man. What is this show? If you guys wanna see me release a Finnish melodeath-inspired record, give this video a like, dude. I think we can do it. I'm gonna listen back
to those vocals and see. I'm gonna practice. Yeah, I'll practice. I'm gonna make sure the
camera's still rolling. Yep, we're good. (high-pitched tone) One of the most significant
safety innovations in the history of racing is the helmet. (upbeat music) Helmets have been around in
racing since the beginning, but they've evolved a lot
from the cloth skull caps of the early 20th century. Thin leather helmets
and goggles were common, but didn't provide much protection at all. I can't imagine why. In the 1920s and '30s, some drivers used football helmets
or firefighter helmets because they protected better
than the racing helmets. We actually made a really cool
evolution of racing helmets a long time ago, but it still whips ass, and you should check it out. I'll put it right there. Modern Formula One helmets are
the safest they've ever been. The outer shell is made of carbon fiber, and has small polycarbonate fins to direct air around the driver's head, because in open-wheel
racing, the driver's head affects the overall
aerodynamics of the car. That's insane. Also, you're going so fast that it might pull the
helmet off your head, so those little fins keep it down. It's like having a spoiler on your helmet. The inside of the helmet is Kevlar, molded around the specific driver's head. The visor also has
multiple transparent sheets that can be pulled off in case debris clouds the driver's vision. You know, tear-offs,
you've probably seen them. After Formula One driver Felipe Massa took a spring to the
dome at 160 miles an hour while qualifying at the
2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, a small carbon fiber shield was added to the top of the visor. The force of the spring hitting his helmet was equivalent to being
shot with an AK-47. Luckily, Massa recovered
and continued his career after the accident; he
actually retired twice. To help the driver breathe, there are also ports for ventilation, but when it comes to airflow, NASCAR helmets have F1
beat by a country mile. Modern NASCAR helmets
have a tube at the back that connects to a fresh air intake. It flows through the tube and around the driver's
head during a race, and that is crucial when the
temperature in stock cars climbs past 130 degrees
in the (bleep) pit, and up to 170 degrees by the pedals. Good lord. Race drivers are known to lose up to 10 pounds of body weight
from sweat during a race. In addition to a helmet, modern
drivers wear a HANS device, or head and neck support. This device restrains the head from whipping forward in a crash. The straps and harness help
to reduce neck tension 81%, and a total neck load of 78%. When unrestrained, drivers can suffer a basilar skull fracture, which
is tragically what happened to NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt in 2001. Following Earnhardt's passing, NASCAR mandated that all
drivers wear a HANS device. Mercedes helped to develop the HANS device that's been used in F1 since 2003. They're different systems
than the ones used in NASCAR, but they work on the same principle. So why is that, among all this innovation striving towards the
safest vehicle possible, that race cars don't have airbags? Well, there are two different
approaches to safety that fill two different needs, and to understand why race
cars don't have airbags, you have to understand
what those needs are. Race cars have different safety needs than passenger cars meant for the road. Comfort isn't as big a
concern in a race car because it's all about going fast, but comfort is a huge
concern in road cars. You need room to move around, stretch, observe your surroundings,
grab your coffee, adjust your mirror, whatever. All that requires space to move around. The more room you have in your car, the further your body is going to travel in the event of a crash. But that means there's more
time for your body to slow down, and that's what safety
features in passenger cars do, they slow your rate of deceleration. The crumple zone is the
first area of impact. It takes a lot of the force of the crash and slows the car down, dispersing the force over the whole car. As your body goes forward,
the seatbelt restrains you while also giving a little bit of slack to slow your body down even more. As your body continues to move forward, the airbag expands to
meet your chest and face and absorb that impact, hopefully slowing your body down enough that the next impact, your
organs hitting your skeleton, doesn't completely turn you into jelly. Sounds delicious; actually
very uncomfortable. A race car has most of these features, but heavy-duty versions of them to deal with the extra force
of going 200 miles an hour. Race cars have crumple
zones, much like road cars, that help disperse some of that energy, but that's where the two diverge. The biggest difference between the two is the amount of space
between the driver's seat and the steering wheel. Race cars are built for speed, with driver comfort being less important. If the cockpit had any more space, that would directly impact the weight and aerodynamics of the car, so the cockpit is engineered
to be as compact as possible. Racing harnesses are designed to restrain a driver much
more than a normal seat belt, plus the HANS device. This is all to say that the driver is not moving much at all,
so if an airbag went off, it wouldn't do its intended
duty and slow the driver down. It might not even reach the driver. An airbag would probably make driving an F1 car more dangerous. Rally drivers often hit curbs
and get in small accidents, but keep driving as if
their car is total fine. The truth is minor impacts
could set that airbag off, obstructing the driver's view when they might need
to get out of the way, and then they'd probably need to stop and replace the module, costing them precious time on the track. And then there's the
issue of engine fires. If a driver crashed,
and the airbag went off, it would also make it a lot harder to undo the harness and get out of the car in the event of a fire, and that's probably the
worst way you can go. Trapped in a burning car, no thank you. On that horrifying note, thank
you so much for watching. If you liked this video, guys, please give it a thumbs up. Hey, we have this new thing
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