The fencing master

‘The challenge for us was to convince everybody that there is a benefit to having a tested solution’

With the introduction of significant improvements in safety standards the number of race drivers seriously injured and killed competing in the sport has hugely diminished. Over the past few decades, many new driver safety innovations have been introduced, from front and side impact structures to head restraints and the Halo. All these usually enable drivers to stay safe and walk away from even the worst of incidents.

However, the innovations and standardisation of circuit safety in order to protect the spectators and track workers has been comparatively lacking. Crashes such as at Bathurst in 2015, injuring a marshal standing behind a fence, or Sophia Floersch’s accident at Macau in 2018 when she struck a photographer’s building, come to mind.

While circuit safety to protect the driver has been an important factor of approvals of circuits into major racing series, up until now there was no homologation or standardised testing method for the safety guidelines of fences and walls put up to protect spectators, marshals, and track staff. This was in stark contrast to the advancement of the FIA’s policies on driver safety kit, which must undergo rigorous tests, approvals, and frequent updates to standards.

‘We realised after visiting all the different circuits around the globe that there were big differences between the execution of the construction’

Part of the lack of advancement of standards for debris fences was because the FIA seriously struggled to run repeatable tests, making it nearly impossible to compare the level of safety these barriers provided between each track. At the time, if the FIA wanted to test the performance of these fences, its method was to fire a wrecking ball at them using an air-powered cannon. But during these tests they were unable to ensure that the ball was providing the exact same impact each time.

To help resolve