FIA Foundation | Safe Motor Sport

Our work

The FIA Foundation works for health, development and progress across these issues:

About us

Meet our trustees and our team, and learn about our governance:

Helping racers to drive and survive

As the global charity of worldwide motor sport, we play a key role in financing cutting-edge safety research. The halo, HANS, high speed barriers, the F1 helmet, wheel tethers and racing car crash tests: we’ve helped to deliver them all. Through funding for medical specialists, race marshals, and grassroots safety training developing the next generation of young racers – boys and girls - the FIA Foundation supports the FIA’s ‘vision zero’ to eliminate death and serious injury in motor sport.

The FIA’s safety research team is charged with finding technical solutions to keep the governing body’s motor sport championships safe at all levels. The FIA Foundation provides funding support for this objective. From circuit safety design to fire-retardant clothing, from racing car aerodynamics to rally car roll cages, we resource the safety solutions.

Motor sport is powered by volunteers, enthusiasts who provide race management, marshalling and rescue services at countless events across the world. Regular training and mentoring are vital. We support the information flow from global medical conferences to local training sessions, funding both FIA and national ASN (motor sport clubs) activities.

THUMS … Total Human Model for Safety

THUMS (Total Human Model for Safety) is a computer model that represents the human body, able to simulate injuries for real-life safety research that is difficult to measure on crash test dummies. Supplementing the existing methodology of full-scale real car crash testing, THUMS and the continual advance in computer capabilities is allowing the testing to move into the virtual world. Multiple changes to vehicle design, be that the seats, seatbelts, or chassis can now be iterated through to determine the safest installations, as well as allowing accident and injury reconstruction.

Learn more

The FIA distributes a number of important Safety Bulletins providing information on crucial safety developments - including projects that have been funded with the help of the FIA Foundation. Please click on the links below to read the most recent bulletins:

24/01/2025 - FIA ASN Safety Bulletin #48
10/01/2025 - FIA ASN Safety Bulletin #47
13/11/2024 - FIA ASN Safety Bulletin #46
03/10/2024 - FIA ASN Safety Bulletin #45
To read past issues of the FIA ASN Safety Bulletin please click here.