The FIA is one of the largest motorsport governing boards in the world. Founded in 1904, the FIA is over 100 years old. The three letters stand for Federation Internationale de l'Automobile, which, loosely translated, means The International Automotive Federation. To date, the FIA oversees more than 30 championships, from junior karts to drag racing, the WRC, hill-climbs for historic cars, and its most famous, Formula One.
Also known as a safety foundation, FIA sets standards and creates certifications that demand thorough and intense testing for qualification. So what exactly does all of this mean for you when purchasing an FIA-certified product such as a seat or helmet? The short version is that the product is known to provide the highest level of safety available at the time of certification.
In Filipe Massa's case, the advanced FIA 8860 helmet standard used in Formula One since 2004 undoubtedly saved his life. This helmet was over eight years in testing and development, and the end result was a completely new way of producing a helmet that's better engineered to protect the human head. Recently, the WRC has tested and approved a new open-faced version, further extending its overall safety.
So what does certification involve? In the case of the 8860 helmet standard, it must withstand an impact with deceleration of up to or less than 300g. A fire test subjects the helmet to 1,472 degree for 30 seconds. Temperatures inside the helmet must not exceed 158 degrees. The visors even have projectiles fired at them at high speeds. The outer shell of the helmet is usually constructed of layers of T1000 aerospace-grade carbon fiber material, assembled by weaving thousands of miles of micro-threads together to form the helmet design. In the end, a helmet can weigh as little as 43 ounces but withstand a 55-ton tank driving over it as Schuberth often demonstrates.
If you value your head, buying a certified helmet is obviously on your list. But a helmet of this level is probably more than most can afford outside professional motorsport. But a Snell-certified helmet works the same way; the standard is just different. Thinking about something like a seat, it could be a bit harder to understand the need for a certification, however.
The seat though, is on the same page with the helmet as a second level of protection (the car is first). It contains your entire body, a great deal more mass. In a crash, a seat could become detached, positioning your body in a way that even the seatbelts couldn't protect. Side impact protection is also a huge factor. These two areas of interest are big contributors to the fact that no reclineable seats are FIA certified.
An FIA certification for a racing seat can be found on their website (www.fia.com). It's highly technical and very long, but involves shear strength for mounting, torsional tension for twisting, minimum and maximum sizes for seatbacks and bottoms, and a huge number of other things. But that's just the start of it. The seat must endure simulated crashes with a test dummy and then be measured again to a post-crash standard.
As an example, let's take a look at a well known seat that isn't FIA certified, but is often sold as the equivalent-the Spoon Carbon Kevlar seat. It's a non-reclining, pure motorsport seat. Since it's a fixed bucket seat, you know it could potentially be FIA certified. Often it's sold as approved for motorsport use by JAF (Japan Automobile Federation), which follows the same regulations as FIA. But looking at the JAF website, it looks more like the American version of AAA rather than anything resembling FIA. This isn't taking anything away from the seat at all. But what we're seeing here is perhaps a crucial distinction.