Williams technical chief Rob Smedley has suggested that covered cockpits on Formula 1 cars could still raise safety concerns.
Talk of adding canopies to drivers' cockpits came about after the death of Justin Wilson from head injuries sustained in an Indy Car race last month.
While he is in favour of evolving car design to improve driver safety, Smedley has claimed that a canopy could bring added danger.
Smedley is quoted by Crash.net as saying: "One of the main considerations for a closed canopy is that we must not lose sight of what we're doing it for, which is safety. First and foremost, it's driver's safety and one of the aspects of a closed cockpit is that the driver still has to be able to exit from the car in all cases. That probably is the biggest engineering challenge.
"Putting a closed cockpit on the car itself doesn't pose a particular headache from an engineering point of view. Where the more lateral thinking comes in is that the driver still has to be able to escape, he still has to be able to get out of the car - and that includes when the car rolls over.
"Equally, [we have to ensure that] the medical team can still get inside a cockpit, that they're still able to access a driver very, very quickly. So [covering the cockpit] will throw up engineering and technical questions which will need innovative and lateral thinking, but that shouldn't stop us doing it."
Among those in favour of a redesigned cockpit is Jenson Button, who has said that the death of Wilson has changed his mind on the issue.
Chris O'Keefe
