Catch fencing

[Mark]

I just happened to stumble upon highlights of the 1975 British Grand Prix. Commentary by Jackie Stewart and Murray Walker :D . Murray sounded exactly the same in 1975 as he always did :D

On the first corner at Silverstone instead of gravel traps they had erected a series of catch fences, one after another, JYS described them as 'wire mesh with light poles, they do a good job of arresting the cars'.

Was this used anywhere else or was it just a trial for this race?

Towards the end of this race there was a torrential downpour and many of the drivers using slick tyres went straight into the catch fencing and it looked very dangerous indeed :eek:

[ArrowsFA1]

Was this used anywhere else or was it just a trial for this race?
It was a common sight at circuits, certainly until the mid-1980's. More than one driver suffered a clout on the head from one of the poles, and being wrapped up in catch-fencing was not uncommon :eek:

It was possibly introduced in the 70's as an alternative to armco, which had caused the death of Francois Cevert, Stewart's team-mate at Tyrrell in 1973.

[K-Pu]

For example Ayrton Senna had a big accident with these fences at Paul Ricard IIRC... And Laffite too some years before. In the video footage you can se how the fecen poles are thrown away when the car goes off the track. If the pilot is hit by one of these... well, at least they wear helmets, but in Lafitte´s case, poles were thrown where the public should be

[sonic_roadhog]

Yeah terrible idea! But I can't help that notice something very similar has turned up in place of crash barriers on the roads. My local Motorway has wire barriers connected by 1m tall posts!!!! Maybe the planners should take a look at 70's/80's F1 films.

Sonic :)

[ArrowsFA1]

This is Riccardo's experience of catch fencing at Zandvoort during the 1979 Dutch GP after brake failure on his Arrows at the end of the straight :eek:

[Mark]

:eek: A crashing F1 car only about a metre from standing spectators. Horrifying these days.

[Alexamateo]

It was a common sight at circuits, certainly until the mid-1980's. More than one driver suffered a clout on the head from one of the poles, and being wrapped up in catch-fencing was not uncommon :eek:



If I am not mistaken, Mark Donohue was killed after a catch fencing pole hit him in the head. He walked away from the accident, but died hours later as a result of blood clots on the brain. It's also a reason drivers should be checked out after an accident even if they appear uninjured.

[futuretiger9]

Catch fencing seemed to become more fashionable after Armco barriers were implicated in fatal accidents in F1 and other formulae.

Although they usually succeeded in slowing the cars down, I wince when watching old F1 footage and seeing a car go into the catch fencing. There were a few nasty moments involving catch fencing. Eventually in the mid-to-late 1980s, a consensus emerged, which revolved around the use of gravel traps and tyre barriers.

[D-Type]

At the time cars had little of the passive safety that we take for granted nowadays. The concept of central "safety cell" where a car absorbed a lot of energy ripping the corners off while the central tub remaines intact didn't exist then.
The objection to Armco was twofold - it was hard and unyielding, particularly in a head-on impact; and secondly it would bounce a damaged car back onto the track in front of the others.
On the other hand, catch fencing brought a car progressively to a halt with gentler deceleration of the driver and less risk of bits flying off into the crowd. A major problem arose with multi-layer fencing: the marshalls had difficulty getting to the car to render assistance. They couldn't be sure how many layers a car had gone through so if they judged wrong and ran between the wrong two fences they could be sparated from the car by a layer of impenetrable chain link fence. The best answer was to follow the car in from the track, but this meant putting yourself in the firing line as it were. As catch fencing was designed to absorb energy by failing, if an accident did occur it had to be rebuilt taking time and money.

[GJD]

Oh yes, catch fencing could be quite dangerous stuff.

http://blogs.citypages.com/jwalsh/images/ge%5B1%5D.jpg

[Tazio]

Are we talking about the kind of chain link fence that RB crashed into at Imola on that weekend that claimed two drivers lives? It makes me cringe every time I see that footage. Talk about your sudden decelaration. Ouch!

[Shifter]

Huh? I'm pretty sure RB hit the kerb and took flight into a tyre barrier that was particularily unyeilding. In fact RB prblably would have been better off hitting the solid wall because it wouldn't have 'caught' the car the way the tyres did.

[Tazio]

Huh? I'm pretty sure RB hit the kerb and took flight into a tyre barrier that was particularily unyeilding. In fact RB prblably would have been better off hitting the solid wall because it wouldn't have 'caught' the car the way the tyres did.
Thanks Shifty!!

[D-Type]

Tazio,
If you re-read my post #9 you will realise that about the only thing that catch fencing DID do effectively was reduce sudden deceleration

[syameese]

Huh? I'm pretty sure RB hit the kerb and took flight into a tyre barrier that was particularily unyeilding. In fact RB prblably would have been better off hitting the solid wall because it wouldn't have 'caught' the car the way the tyres did.

If I recall correctly RB's wheel caught on the debris fence - that sort of fence is completely different to catch-fencing.

I think that the posts suggesting that catch fencing was seen as a beter alternative to armco are spot on. Of course I am old enough to remember that armco was seen as a great advance in safety as it could prevent accidents with trees like Jimmy Clark's at Hockenheim.

Each of these measures were seen as providing an advance in safety, but none were perfect. Now we have reached the stage where the run off areas are so wide that drivers just extend the track and there is rarely a racing consequence for a driving mistake. Safer certainly, but imo still not a perfect solution.

[ArrowsFA1]

This photo might give a better idea of the extent to which catch fencing was deployed. It shows the same Patrese accident as earlier.

[SteveA]

The 1975 multi-pile-up can be seen on YouTube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=h9mXWqLjGd8

[ClarkFan]

I think that the posts suggesting that catch fencing was seen as a beter alternative to armco are spot on. Of course I am old enough to remember that armco was seen as a great advance in safety as it could prevent accidents with trees like Jimmy Clark's at Hockenheim.

I even remember that one of the strong early campaigners for Armco barriers was none other than Jackie Stewart. I believe that you are right about the caluclation of those days. Stewart probably knew that the barriers weren't really safe, but they beat a trip into the trees, brick farmhouses, or being trapped in a ditch at Spa surrounded by gasoline. He was always very aware of the odds he faced and worked to do what he could to improve them. Catch fences simply represented the next attempt to lower the risk.

ClarkFan

[Zsolt]

They had catching fences on my copy of the 1976 Italian Grand Prix too. Never saw them before. I didn't think it looked too safe.

[Erki]

I think it's Castle Combe that has some bushes inside the track? I remember Piquet Jr or someone spun his F3 into one of them. And runoff in first corner at Snetterton extends into a cornfield! Last year it looked pretty scary when cars dived into it one after another and drivers were getting out of the field. But still, it looked pretty efficient at slowing the cars down, can't they use something like this everywhere? Or some kind of foam etc?

[Valve Bounce]

They had catching fences on my copy of the 1976 Italian Grand Prix too. Never saw them before. I didn't think it looked too safe.


I think that when the cars hit the fence, the poles holding the fence used to go crashing down on the cars and proved quite dangerous. I think that kitty litter is probably the safest option, apart from an extensive paved runoff; the latter would prove to be even more effective if cars then had to go back to where they spun off before re-enterring the track.

[ClarkFan]

I think that when the cars hit the fence, the poles holding the fence used to go crashing down on the cars and proved quite dangerous. I think that kitty litter is probably the safest option, apart from an extensive paved runoff; the latter would prove to be even more effective if cars then had to go back to where they spun off before re-enterring the track.
Or they could follow the practice of amateur lapping days. When you spin out, you have to go back to the pit, explain to the marshals what happened, and convince them that you won't do that again. That should prove an adequate penalty.

:p

ClarkFan

[D-Type]

I think that when the cars hit the fence, the poles holding the fence used to go crashing down on the cars and proved quite dangerous. I think that kitty litter is probably the safest option, apart from an extensive paved runoff; the latter would prove to be even more effective if cars then had to go back to where they spun off before re-enterring the track.People seem obsessed with the poles breaking. They were supposed to break - it was part of the concept of energy absorption. If a car hit a post, it would tend to push the pole over and it would break in the direction the car was going, i.e. away from the driver. The woven mesh would wrap around the car keeping the post away from the driver. Likewise, the continuity of the fencing would prevent the poles on each side of the car from hitting the driver. If a pole hit a driver it had to be due to some freak circumstance or to incorrect installation (that old bugbear again!).
Historic racing has shown that kitty litter is not that effective with narrower rims - the wheel digs in and turns the car over.

[ArrowsFA1]

Or they could follow the practice of amateur lapping days. When you spin out, you have to go back to the pit, explain to the marshals what happened, and convince them that you won't do that again. That should prove an adequate penalty.
Andrea de Cesaris would have spent more time chatting to the marshals than lapping the track :crazy: :p :

[BDunnell]

It seems to me that one of the big disadvantages of catch fencing was that it meant that the cars that got caught up in it were in dangerous positions for far longer than they are now. You can see that in the 1975 British GP video. Admittedly, those were freak conditions and much has been learnt about safety in the intervening three decades, but it takes ages for the cars and drivers to be disentangled, with vehicles on the track, people running around trying to help and so on.