Ground breaking Roll Cage from MINI WRC Team

If you follow motorsport you will be aware of the Rallying accident that has seen F1 driver Robert Kubica side lined for this year. The FIA is very strict about car safety and survival cells at all levels of motorsport. Robert Kubica suffered serious injuries because the side of his car took the brunt of the impact. Side impact protection has been an issue in World Rallying for a while. To help resolve this issue and reduce injuries caused by side impact collisions the MINI WRC Team has come up with a ground breaking new roll cage. The new roll cage has a unique side-impact structure for MINI’s debut into world rallying and hopefully into modified used MINI in Scotland. As we know a side impact accident is the most dangerous, due to the distance between the occupants and point of impact. The roll cage found in the MINI John Cooper Works WRC features door beams that curve outwards, which allows them to withstand greater impact forces and begin deceleration of the car sooner and for a longer period of time, significantly reducing the G-forces experienced by the crew. The MINI WRC Team's Technical Director, Dave Wilcock, explained: "The new generation of rally cars are more compact than before, however we wanted to ensure that the crew were safer than ever and also that the car felt as spacious as possible. This brought some unique challenges." Prodrive engineers subjected more than 50 sample and concept roll cage joints to physical tests to see how each would fail, which led to complete redesigns of a number of joints and the use of different welding techniques and the application of a new grade of steel for the cage tubing.