Should there be penalties for when a car falls apart like Hulkenberg's?

[Jericoke]

At the 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix the front wing on Nico Hulkenberg's car suffered a catastrophic failure.  It fell off, and then he ran it over, spreading carbon fibre shards across the track, across another driver and his car.  It forced the deployment of the safety car so that workers could safely clean up the track.

So my question is, should the team be penalized in some form for putting out a car that is dangerous?  Certainly no one was hurt here, but in another area he might have been close enough to fans that the razor sharp shards could cause injuries.  While we enjoy the spectacle that the safety car provides with a 'restart', it is only deployed when something dangerous has happened.  I know the teams do their best to make the cars as fast as possible and meet certain minimum requirements for safety, but should they be held responsible when they push the line too far?

Obviously Force India didn't do this on purpose, but if teams are held accountable, they might be a little more conservative, and we don't have to wait for a cloud of carbon fibre to injure someone before the FIA decides to act.

[Steve A.]

The car could have quite safe when sent out, but contact somewhere on track could have caused the failure, which would be very hard to police. 
Raikonens camera fell off while he was driving, again at the wrong place it could have caused a knock on effect, could that be laid at Ferrari's door. I think there are enough penalties already.

[cosworth151]

The team could counter that, since on-track testing isn't available to them for most of the season, almost no structural or aero changes could be made for most of the season.

[Andy B]

Rules rules rules!
Should we have rules for the rules?
Its the panicle of motorsport so failures will happen be it mechanical or human its the nature of the sport.

[John S]

I think it's penalty enough for any team to have their car totally wrecked and lose the possibility of any points.

F1 is a prototype formula and will always throw up problems from changes in the design and composition of the car's structure. Others have already said that the lack of in season testing means many new parts on the cars will only get a true load test during a GP, whether that's practice with Kimi's car or the race for the Hulk. 

[Jericoke]

I think it's penalty enough for any team to have their car totally wrecked and lose the possibility of any points.

F1 is a prototype formula and will always throw up problems from changes in the design and composition of the car's structure. Others have already said that the lack of in season testing means many new parts on the cars will only get a true load test during a GP, whether that's practice with Kimi's car or the race for the Hulk.

My problem isn't with the loss of the car, which I agree is a fair enough punishment, but the inherent danger of that much carbon fibre flying around.  We know what happened to Massa with flying debris, so I would consider Kvyat lucky.   If this had happened in a corner near a marshal stand, are they adequately protected from that sort of debris?  They're volunteers and certainly don't have thousands of dollars worth of safety gear like the drivers do.

Maybe a simple enough 'penalty' is paying for a steak dinner for the volunteers who had to clean up the team's mistakes?

[Scott]

Missed the race, but my input leans towards not having any more penalties.  Jeri, you're starting to sound like the Italian authorities who believe blame can be applied in every accident. 

Racing is inherently dangerous.  Says so on your ticket, says so in the waiver every Marshall has to sign to have the privilege of working on race day.  Says so in the drivers contract preventing them from holding the team accountable.

[Andy B]

I agree Scott and as the local Motorcycle Street Race Marshals co-ordinator its me that has them trained and sign on on the morning of the races to remove any liability from them and also that they understand the risks involved. Last year I went onto a live track to assist a rider recovering his bike done under waved yellows but still a risk especially as it was in a hairpin. The reason for doing it? Its a buzz being that close to the racing and the riders/drivers really do appreciate the marshals role.

[Jericoke]

Missed the race, but my input leans towards not having any more penalties.  Jeri, you're starting to sound like the Italian authorities who believe blame can be applied in every accident. 

Racing is inherently dangerous.  Says so on your ticket, says so in the waiver every Marshall has to sign to have the privilege of working on race day.  Says so in the drivers contract preventing them from holding the team accountable.

LOL.  I'm a mom to a teen.  Cars suddenly seem like deathtraps out to kill everyone.

Kvyat's contract would only be with RBR.  If he's injured by a failure from Force India is that covered?  Is that buried somewhere in Concorde where the teams agree that dangerous designs are a risk of the sport?  The FIA has been happy to ban other 'dangerous designs' in the past.  I remember when the 'X-Wings' mounted on the side pods about 10 years ago were in fashion, and one broke off during a pitstop.  It only took one wing failure, and they were immediately banned.

[Steve A.]

I think the waiver signed by the drivers covers pretty much anything that happens on track. I was a crowd marshall at Goodwood and we had to sign one even though we were not as close as the track marshall.

[lkjohnson1950]

The waiver did not stop Mark Donohue's family from suing Goodyear et. al. when he was killed. And if penalties were assessed for fragile design, Lotus under Chapman would have been constantly dinged.

[Jericoke]

The waiver did not stop Mark Donohue's family from suing Goodyear et. al. when he was killed. And if penalties were assessed for fragile design, Lotus under Chapman would have been constantly dinged.

Not a fragile design.  A dangerous design.  If the wing fell off and lodged under Nico's car and he sailed into the gravel trap, that's a racing incident.  When parts fall off a car and hit other drivers/bystanders, that's what I'd like to see avoided.

That's why the wheels are attached to tethers, because the danger to marshals from a flying wheel was immense.  (Wasn't the last 'on track' death from a wheel that escaped its tether?)

[Steve A.]

The problem is who decides what is dangerous, the car has passed all of its safety tests,  as has been said the only time it gets a real test is in the race, there is no in season testing so parts can't be tested in the way they used to. The only way to stop it is finish the season with the exact car you started with. That would lead to stagnation.
The death from the loose wheel was the marshal in Australia, and as far as I can remember the wheel fitted through a gap only slightly bigger than the wheel itself.

[Alianora La Canta]

Missed the race, but my input leans towards not having any more penalties.  Jeri, you're starting to sound like the Italian authorities who believe blame can be applied in every accident. 

Racing is inherently dangerous.  Says so on your ticket, says so in the waiver every Marshall has to sign to have the privilege of working on race day.  Says so in the drivers contract preventing them from holding the team accountable.

LOL.  I'm a mom to a teen.  Cars suddenly seem like deathtraps out to kill everyone.

Kvyat's contract would only be with RBR.  If he's injured by a failure from Force India is that covered?  Is that buried somewhere in Concorde where the teams agree that dangerous designs are a risk of the sport?

Article 10 of the Sporting Regulations covers this sort of thing. It doesn't require that anyone agrees to dangerous designs being a risk, but it does require everyone to be insured against that possibility.

Article 10.1 makes it the race promoter's responsibility to ensure all drivers, teams and officials have third party insurance that is appropriate for motorsport (the FIA has separate regulations for what they expect such insurance to look like, and is entitled to bar anyone without such insurance from participating in any race it administers until the error is corrected). Interestingly, drivers aren't required to be insured against each other... ...but teams are. So a team can't claim because their race was ruined by an errant bit of carbon fibre, but they can claim if their race was ruined by an errant driver mistaking the track for a computer game.

Article 10.2 requires the circuit and organisers to be covered with equally appropriate insurance, and for any participant to be able to see it on demand. That way, neither Nico nor Force India need worry about being billed for the wall they damaged.

Article 10.3 allows people to have their own insurance in addition to the compulsory one, if they want extra bells and whistles.

The standard motorsport waiver is not a matter of insurance, but a standard piece of legal contracting that the FIA uses because it knows the sport is inherently more dangerous than any reasonable person can completely cover against. I believe the FIA requires this for any event it administers, but I don't know what rule makes this so.

[Monty]

Rules should penalise recklessness and negligence but they shouldn't stand in the way of innovation. It is right that in trying to maximise performance, F1 cars should be at the very edge of reliability. There shouldn't be penalties if they fall the wrong side of reliability as long as  the design had been thoroughly assessed before being adopted. It would be impossible to know if a component had failed or if it had been exposed to external stress i.e. Hulkenberg's wing might have hit a kerb or clipped another car causing a later failure. It would be grossly unfair to then penalise the team for the failure.