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Comment by scrumper | Hacker News Reader

I'm interested in engineering for track marshall safety with these cars. Anyone come across any interesting articles? Certainly there were some difficulties with early F1 KERS batteries, must be far more difficult here with the energy required to power a car for an entire race.

Edit: thanks for info below.

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I can't speak to f1 but in Le Mans and the wec they have had a variety of hybrid systems.

There are indicator lights on the outside of the cars that show the status of the hybrid system. They also have a emergency cutoff switch that is large enough for them to push with a fiberglass pole.

In some cases especially in practice if the car is badly damaged they will send one of the safety and intervention vehicles back to the pits and fetch a crew member from that car with tools to properly safe the hybrid system. I've also seen where the Marshalls will have the driver climb out of the car stand on the side pod and jump clear, then take 4 or 5 bunny hops away from the car.

Dumb question, why must a driver hop away from a damaged vehicle?

Theoretically, if there was a short to ground, a voltage potential could develop between the two legs if the driver took a step away from the car. By hopping and landing with feet together, both legs will always be at the same potential so no current should run through the legs even if the immediate area around the car is energized.

It looks absurd, but it's standard advice if a backhoe or crane hits a power line.

https://youtu.be/Xvlk_73bSvc?t=2m31s

And why you should keep your feet together when there is a thunderstorm. An impact near you can still kill you if your feet are apart.

It means the driver is never part of a conductive path between the car and the ground.

Or between different parts of the "ground" that are at different potentials.

They follow F1 rules since its hybrid era. There is some battery-state signals, special routines like escaping from car for driver and prohibit of touching car without special gloves.

At the 2017 Mexico GP, Niko Hulkenberg was told to exit the car because it wasn't safe. He stood out on the nose of the car and jumped off using a specific protocol.

There's also an indication for corner workers that alerts them to the unsafe condition.

https://twitter.com/F1/status/924723086875938817

I'm guessing the nose must be grounded and safe to walk on somehow as part of the regulations? I remember watching it live and wondering if every car has a different procedure, or was it just Renault that had the nose. Whereas Ferrari might say, get out on your right side, or stand up in your seat and jump over everything..

The nose is electrically connected to the rest of the car. If the car has a potential difference to ground the driver will already be at the potential of the car. The point is you make sure you're not touching the ground and the car at the same time as that would make you a convenient current path.

I don't think there's anything fundamentally different to F1 when it comes to marshalling, primarily just having similar red/orange/green lights on the roll-hoop to make it clear whether there's any risk in touching the car.

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