There was once a time when catastrophic mechanical failures and significant shunts made Formula 1 a chaotic spectacle.
There’s no hiding that thanks to the FIA’s efforts over the last few decades, safety has come a long way, with both drivers and spectators being in a far better position than they once were.
Multiple current Formula 1 drivers are fortunate that leaps in standards have saved lives through the years.
This year’s drivers’ championship hasn’t seen any significant crashes, and reliability seems stronger than ever. Old-fashioned spectacular engine failures are a thing of the past.
Mercedes were dealing with a ‘serious reliability issue’ which threatened to thwart their season earlier in 2025, but customer team McLaren seemed unaffected by their woes, with two titles on the line.
However, McLaren did make one ‘extreme’ change to their car that was feared could cause reliability issues. Fortunately, it doesn’t appear to have had any negative effect.
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Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty ImagesTakuma Sato felt a ‘meteor’ had hit him after crashing at the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix
One great example of how improvements to safety have helped to reduce the dangers of the sport came at the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix.
On lap 27 after a safety car restart, Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld hit the brakes, but his car spun round at high speed. He had misjudged how much warm-up a new set of anchors had required at low speed.
He speared into the side of Jordan’s Takuma Sato, who, after some time, was safely extracted from his car. Speaking to the Red Bull website, he once revealed his reaction to the incident.
“I thought a meteor had hit me,” he said. “It was an unbelievably big impact and it was strange because I had no idea who’d crashed into me.
“It was like something had hit me out of nowhere. I felt a lot of pain and couldn’t move my legs because they were wedged between bits of carbon fibre from my car and bits of the Sauber.”
In his debut season at the time, Sato finished in the points once at his season-closing home race. He didn’t have a race seat for 2003, but was BAR’s test driver, competing once more in the last race at Japan and scoring points again.
In 2004, they rewarded him with a full-time drive, and he would score a maiden podium at Indianapolis – a place that would become very familiar to him in the future, with two Indy 500 wins in 2017 and 2020.
He scored one point for BAR in 2005 and wound up at Super Aguri in 2006. Between then and his last race in 2008, he would score points just two more times.
Takuma Sato expects Austrian Grand Prix crash would have had a ‘different outcome’ five years before
The improvement in safety standards was something that Sato did not take for granted. He also mentioned how he thinks that if the crash had happened a few years before, he might have been in trouble.
“Had the crash happened five years earlier, I think there might have been a different outcome,” he said. “I’m sure my legs would have been more damaged because the safety of the cars was improving very rapidly.”
In 2010, he settled in IndyCar, where he still races on a part-time basis today. His best championship finish was a 7th overall in 2020.
He tested with Red Bull for the 2009 Toro Rosso seat in 2008, but Sebastien Bourdais, a future rival of his in IndyCar, would eventually receive the gig, and Sato would refuse a role as Red Bull test driver.