[VLM]

One minor statistical problem is I googled around for mesothelioma and it looks like when tens of millions are exposed, roughly about thousands die per year, about 20-40 years after exposure. So if you have a population of maybe 1000 total drivers after thirty or so years you'll have maybe one die per year. Or so.

Another problem with the disease is the proverbial 18 year old apprentice steamfitter could die of lung cancer in his relatively young late 40s which is epidemiologically very interesting and easy to detect. There are some young 20-something F-1 drivers who are barely old enough to drink booze, but if a 40 year old driver finally today inhales "the" fiber that would kill him 40 years later, that is rather moot if he dies at 65 of a totally unrelated heart attack or 70 of an unrelated cancer.

So there are two problems: There are not many possible victims resulting in perhaps less than one cancer as a result, and some of the drivers are "really old" by SV programmer standards and the cancer is really slow to kill, so they'll die long before the cancer takes hold.

So... by analogy, if smoking pot will kill me from lung cancer in 30 years, that is rather motivational when told to 10 year olds, but I don't think it'll discourage many new social security recipients from taking up the pipe. In fact that sounds like a fun idea to me.

[rjsw]

It won't just be drivers though, anyone in the pits will be exposed to brake dust, maybe even the spectators.

[VLM]

You are correct although it rapidly turns into a square/cube law scaling problem. I have spent many thousands of working hours fifteen miles downwind of a F1 track but the dilution factor is immense. Also time factors in that the track I work downwind of only races once a year but drivers work all year. (although there are minor races all year, which may involve CF material vehicles)

Mechanics specializing in brake work are likely at very high exposure and "should be" dying at a dramatically higher rate than drivers or anyone else. But I haven't heard of anything like that.