Friday 30 October 1998

PRESENTATION OF THE FORMULA ONE
EXTRACTABLE SAFETY SEAT

At a press conference held at the Suzuka circuit on October 29, the FIA
presented an extractable seat for Formula 1 cars, of the type required by
the regulations for 1999. Taking part in the presentation were:

Professor Sid Watkins (President, FIA Medical Commission); Jackie Stewart
(Chairman, Stewart Grand Prix); Dan Jannette, President of the Technology
Division of Lear Corporation; and Charlie Whiting, FIA Race Director and
Safety Delegate

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After a demonstration video had been shown, the following comments were made:

Professor Sid Watkins: For many years some of you will have seen us
practising the removal of drivers from racing cars using a spinal splint.
This has always been a difficult undertaking.

At every Grand Prix circuit we now deploy two or three fully trained
extrication teams, comprising both marshals and doctors, who are trained in
the use of the spinal splint. In any racing accident in which the driver is
rendered unconscious there is no way of knowing whether he has fractured
his spine, and of course no way of knowing where such an injury has been
sustained. It may be in the lumbar region, in the dorsal region, or in the
neck itself.

If at all possible, it is important not to move a patient who has
fractures, because the movement may well dislocate the fractured areas,
making the injuries much worse.

In the past, using the standard seats and cockpits, the dilemma that may
arise has been the necessity to move the driver forward from his seat, in
order to insert the spinal splint. Although this has been done
successfully, for the past five years we have been seeking a better
solution. This appeared to be the development of a seat, configured (as
modern seats are) to the measurements of each driver, in order to provide
him with a perfectly fitting seat which will itself also serve as a spinal
splint.

The difficulty has been in designing a seat which can be removed in one
easy movement, and to get such a seat manufactured. The Expert Advisory
Group, of which Charlie Whiting and I are members, has been pressing for
three years for this to be done. It is therefore with great pleasure that
we welcome the initiative taken by Stewart Grand Prix, together with the
Lear Corporation. We have cooperated from the beginning and they have now
produced an excellent design.

On behalf of the FIA, I wish to thank Jackie Stewart, his senior engineer
Alan Jenkins, the Stewart team and all the people from Lear for working so
effectively. We offered them the best advice we could and they have picked
up on it to do a great job.

Our video shows the three stages involved in the extraction of the injured
driver, complete with his seat, as follows:

1. Securing the driver's head and supporting the neck while his crash
helmet is removed.

2. The removal of the head and neck cockpit protection. This is the foam
insert now required in every F1 car's cockpit. The design has already saved
several lives (and necks) in the three years since its introduction. Lear
has developed an insert to fill the 'dead' space between the back of the
driver's head and the splint that preserves the integrity of his neck.

3. Lifting the driver using four ropes, with hooks attached. This
arrangement is truly ingenious. The straps which retain the driver in place
are integral with the seat itself.

Once the system is established in F1, we propose to extend its use to other
motorsport disciplines. It obviously makes sense for all forms of
motorsport to adopt the principle of removing an injured driver from his
car while still in his seat. We accept that there may be difficulties in
adapting the requirements, say, to GT cars, but we will work on it -- even
if the car's roof has to be cut off in the process.

Jackie Stewart (Chairman, Stewart Grand Prix): Even before I myself heard
about a seat development that was taking place at Lear, our Chief Engineer
Alan Jenkins had also informed himself -- and in fact it was Alan who
suggested, at a moment when I was visiting Ford in Detroit, that I might
visit Lear. From that early beginning I had the opportunity to learn of
this system's potential.

Safety in motor racing has made immense progress in the past few years, and
much of that progress must be attributed to Professor Watkins. It is very
satisfying to know that no matter what technology man devises to improve
car performance, there are constant improvements to be made in safety, too.
Here is an example that might well have been thought about many years ago,
but which was never put into production. It provides ample hope not only
that drivers will survive accidents with their lives but may be able to
walk after crashes that would otherwise have left them paralysed.

The team of people involved in this project at Lear, both in North America
and in Europe, have done an extraordinarily good job. Many hundreds of
hours have been devoted to it by a whole army of experts. The Stewart-Ford
team is proud to have been part of the project and to have contributed
something to motorsport in terms of driver safety, a subject about which I
am still so passionate.

It was the people at Lear, together with Alan, who are responsible for all
of this. I am happy to see it come to pass and delighted to find that the
FIA should see fit in the F1 regulations for 1999 to make it a compulsory
fitting in all cars. Whether the seats are of the team's own manufacture,
or of Lear's, all cars next year will be provided with an extractable seat.

Dan Jannette (President, Technology Division, Lear Corporation): Lear
Corporation prides itself on its technical abilities, so we thought it
would be a true test of those abilities when we hitched up this year in GP
racing with the Stewart team.

When we got involved with Jackie it came to our notice that the extractable
seat was something in which had he had been interested for a number of
years. We realised that this would provide us with an opportunity to find
out if we were as clever as we thought we were. All of us -- at Lear, at
Stewart GP and in the various groups representing the FIA -- have shown
what can be achieved in a short time if the right people are brought
together. It has been a great opportunity and we plan to continue this work
not only with Stewart but also with the FIA.

Charlie Whiting (FIA Race Director and Safety Delegate): In the process of
formulating the new rule which mandates this type of extractable seat in F1
cars for 1999, it was the Technical Working Group which decided to impose
it in 1999. The TWG is a body which comprises the technical heads of each
team and which ultimately makes the rules. In one of their meetings, which
take place six times a year, they came up with this regulation and formally
agreed it in May this year.

We sometimes face a difficulty with new regulations which are the product
of the TWG's suggestions because the teams, despite the indications from
their engineers that compliance will be easy, find -- when faced with the
practicalities of meeting their own requirements -- that they are unable to
do so.

In this case, however, Stewart Grand Prix worked exceptionally hard to get
the extractable seat absolutely right, and to prove to the other teams that
it really could be done. Nothing like this had ever been done before by
just one team, and it has been a great help to us in being able to bring in
this new regulation. I commend Stewart on their efforts.

The regulation itself is straightforward. It simply requires all cars to be
fitted with a seat that may be removed by unscrewing no more than two
bolts. The seat must have seat belt receptacles in six or eight places, and
must meet the requirements of a standard design, details of which are being
issued to the teams by Professor Watkins.

We anticipate that the teams will wish to make minor adaptations of their
own, and the seats will of course continue to be tailored to individual
drivers, although they will all be required to use the same seat belts and
head rest. Apart from this, the seats will conform to a standard design.
Provided the teams can demonstrate that their own seats are easily
removable, there was no reason for us to have imposed one standardised seat
type.

Very few other changes in the rules have been required. The dimensions of
the cockpit opening remain as they are this year: as our video shows, the
four lifting ropes are easily connected and the seat lifts out quite easily
once the head rest padding has been removed.

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