F1 ‘mustn’t wait for fatalities’ before bringing Halo in

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In the round-up: Jackie Stewart says the FIA is doing the right thing by bringing Halo in before it’s too late.

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Stephen queries why the introduction of Halo should pose a problem for Force India:

As I understand it, it was announced in 2016 that Halo was to be mandatory in 2018. The only reason 2018 was chosen is because there wasn’t enough time to have cars ready for this year.

Now, a year later, we have a team saying they still don’t have enough time to get ready. Halo or a similar means of protecting the driver has been in the political wind for several years, so one would have expected even this year’s car should have had the capability to be easily modified to accommodate Halo. There shouldn’t be any reason why Halo would have affected the time line for Force India’s car.
Stephen Crowsen (@Drycrust)

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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77 comments on “F1 ‘mustn’t wait for fatalities’ before bringing Halo in”

  1. RE: COTD

    The initial plan was to introduce additional cockpit protection for this year but over last year’s German GP weekend it was decided to delay it’s introduction until 2018 partly to give teams more time to prepare & partly to give the FIA time to further evaluate the Halo as well as the other ideas that were put forward.

    http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-motor-f1-germany-halo-idUKKCN1082D2

    1. And also, considering the halo is definitely going to be mandatory, as in 1996 Increased cockpit protection around the driver’s head, there will be teams like Jordan (coincidently SFI today) that are going to exploit the safety regulation. I imagine that crash testing might have changed, also aero testing must be made to take the maximum advantage of the regulation and also the monocoque’s structure and weight might be completely redesign to take advantage of the halo.

  2. I don’t go along with Sir Jackie Stewart’s argument, because it only goes part way to protecting against deaths and serious injuries. If the decision is to protect drivers as much as possible then it probably has to be fully closed cockpits and airbags.

    1. And they should drive much slower and avoid overtaking on corners. Both are very dangerous.

      1. Victor (@victorandrei1999)
        20th August 2017, 7:52

        I believe that even the DRS overtakes should be banned due to the risk of crashes at high speeds. :)

        1. And never more than 1 car on track concurrently ;)

          1. Right, Liberty has been looking to add more stuff on race weekends, now we can format it like time trials where each driver gets 15-20 laps to set their best time, one driver at a time on track for safety purposes, that could easily drag it out into an all day session.

        2. PS (@w-k), didn’t seatbelts (per JS reference) also go only “part way to protecting against deaths and serious injuries”

    2. The FIA released a video explaining their reasoning. Part of the reason why Halo was selected is offered better protection than any of the alternatives.

    3. I don’t agree with Jackie on this one because, is the safety belt saga there’s a lot of science behind that, obviously back in the day there wasn’t as much info out there as it is today. The safety belt does mean you can see yourself trapped in your vehicle and also it means that your movement inside the car is severely diminished which may cause more g forces, that said as the driver is safe from hitting anything that may hurt him or cause a massive spike in g force it’s better not to mention that the driver is not projected out of his own car, current seatbelts don’t trap the drivers, though back in the day some did trap the drivers and fire hazard was real. The Halo is just a tyre protection system, if you take the tyres out the halo is more dangerous, and that’s where I disagree with the Halo and Jackie.

    4. I think it is time to stop racing if idoits like FIA start introducing the Halo. To put it in other words: It’s time to get rid of FIA. We don’t need FIA, we don’t want FIA, we don’t like FIA!!!

  3. @keithcollantine Thanks for selecting my comment for the COTD.

    1. *poses a problem, stupid auto correct. Sorry

    2. I’ve always considered it both a blessing and a curse. Amazing finding out you been picked forfor COTD… and then one by one people who disagree with you pop up and shoot you down! Positive outweighs the negative hands down though.

      1. You could always employ the Trump method and get someone to bring you a printout with all the negative feedback thrown out so it’s all win, win, win, oh, I’ve been impeached.

        1. win, win, win, oh, I’ve been impeached

          Had to lol, thanks Zim.

      2. @unicron2002 positive may outweigh the negative, though you could just make sure tyres don’t stray away unlike Perez baku crash. There’s 2 ways to tackle any problem, it’s the bullet and the gun or the gun and the person that fires it, quandary. Don’t come with the austria Kimi alonso and the wurz coulthard incidents argument because these incidents were protected by the shoulder protection on the car.

        1. Totally confused by your comment @peartree I presume it’s something to do with the subject of the COTD which I can’t even remember what that is now. Think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, I wasn’t making any comment on the subject of today’s COTD, just a generic observation about the experience of being picked for COTD.

    3. Evil Homer (@)
      22nd August 2017, 14:23

      @drycrust @keithcollantine
      Congrats on COTD mate but I though FIA said it would be in for 2018 in the 2016 year then changed their minds and said postponed (most were thinking Liberty had intervened and told the FIA how stupid it was for developing the sport more).
      Then there seemed to be a last minute re-introduction for 2018 that caught out teams, so can see the issue in the dely.
      Initial terms were 2018 but when FIA change agenda (Todt) so often what are teams with limited budget to do?
      Should they design a Halo and Non-Halo option just in case ??

      F1 has more rule changes than any other sport on the planet – not good!

      1. your impression is wrong @evilhomer. The only thing is that we as fans were not in the loop with the certainty that either the Halo would be introduced for 2018 (after it was postponed from 2017) OR they would have to install something along the line of the various aero shields.

        I seriously doubt any teams that had their communications in order could be surprised by the Halo coming in for next year. Many fans were surprised because we had not had much talk about it on the TV in the time since last year. But those that have a better memory must have also remembered that the HAlo was already decided upon for next year, so again not a huge surpise and certainly not a change of mind at the last minute.

        1. Evil Homer (@)
          23rd August 2017, 14:39

          @bascb
          How is my impression wrong BasCB? You are assuming that FIA is fluent in their communications with the teams and they can get their 2018 car to design promptly? I assure you FIA are not that- this would have been thrown on to the teams not so much before us fans knew about it.
          The FIA isn’t an efficient beast really

          1. Nope, that is exactly the point @evilhomer. The communication WAS clear. We get either the HALO from 2018 onwards, or we might be able to get a shield solution ready and have that. The teams knew from late 2016 that unless a better idea could be found and tested in time (never that likely) they would have to install the Halo from 2018. Before that time, they would have had to count on getting their chassis ready for Halo already from the 2017 season on, so they were even given a year MORE time to prepare.

            So even unclarity about the “better” solution only meant that a team had MORE reason to count on having to put on the halo ever since 2016, meaning that they could prepare for a whole year before actually starting to build it!

  4. Zero bravery? You couldn’t pay me enough to do what those guys do even if I could. Your chances of getting killed might be small these days, but it still happens. And even if it didn’t, how does a smashed pelvis or a couple of broken legs sound? Or maybe losing a limb or two? Drivers still suffer serious injuries every year.

    1. Hah, you’re not the bravest of men are you Chip Hilton? Or are you just trying to strengthen your point? ;)
      You can’t speak of much bravery in Formula 1, unless you live a very secure life.

      Look, thousands of F1 fans or followers go to work each day doing much more risky/hazardous things. They
      work on construction sites and climb shaky scaffoldings carrying heavy stuff, they work on demolition sites, in iron-foundries where they are inches away from melted iron that can kill them every day, they are firemen, policemen etc. Millions of other people take more risks commuting daily through the chaotic streets of India, Pakistan or South America where they get to see more casualties in a year than F1 has in the last 20 years.
      I’ve done work on heights hanging from a crane or on an elevated platform that gave me nightmares before and after, so if you offered me driving a super modern F1 racing car on a modern racing track, it’d be like taking a break from danger. Yes, please!

      Seriously, overtaking a long truck with my 20 year old, underpowered Mazda on rutted road surface – where the entirity of my car constitutes a single crumple zone – takes more guts then driving a modern F1 car could ever require.

      1. I did my share of foolish and dangerous things when I was younger, but too old for that now. But I can’t agree with your analogy. I’m pretty sure an analysis of serious injuries per miles driven would show F1 is a lot more dangerous than commuting. Some 30,000 Americans die on the roads every year, but they are driving a collective 2.5 trillion miles to do that. All the miles in an F1 season multiplied by 20 drivers would be a very puny figure. And if there’s little or no bravery involved, what enables some drivers to brake later than others? What would keep you from doing what Hamilton does if you were in a Mercedes F1 car?

      2. “I think it’s about time the drivers were removed from the cars for safety reasons, the cars could be remotely controlled from the pits. In fact once the drivers are out we can also make the cars smaller (1/8th scale maybe) which would reduce costs massively.

        There, I’ve fixed all of F1’s problems.”

        John Fish, comment on source article

    2. It doesnt sound bad at all for an elite sport. It hardly sounds bad for a normal life.

    3. “The general perception that racing drivers are these dare devils risking their lives every time they step in a car is more or less just a myth today, there is zero bravery or bravado involved in being a fast driver today and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s made that observation.”

      Someone needs to watch the Pocono 500 tonight.

      1. Someone needs to watch the Pocono 500 tonight.

        @graham228221

        Haha great one!! I sure will watch it :) But as the quote says he talks about “The general perception”, and probably mostly in the light of F1. He then goes on to complementing IndyCar after all.

    4. There are people who jump out of perfectly good airplanes who are counting on a few square meters of fabric jammed into a backpack to keep them safe. There are people who fly small planes without said parachute. I personally love to ride motorcycles, and while I wear appropriate safety gear, I know my chances of surviving even a 50 mile-per-hour accident are slim, at best.

      On average, racing in an F1 car is safer than all three of those activities– but that doesn’t mean it’s risk free. Same with IndyCar.

      Side note: apparently Sebastien Bourdais has been cleared to return to racing.

    5. Stefan Johansson is an old man.

      And just as the old men used to consider Johansson and his generation of racing drivers gutless wusses because they used helmets, fire suits, and safety harnesses where Nuvolari or Caracciola did not, and because their cars wouldn’t explode in flames if somebody just looks at them in the wrong way, and because the circuits they raced on were much safer than those of the times when the old men were young, now Johansson is doing the same thing to the current generation of racers.

      Times are changing, like it or not – we can’t stop it.

      And be sure one day (well, most of us anyway) we will get old to, and we’ll complain just as much as the old men of today how everything was so much better when we were young. :)

      1. Radoye, it’s a well made point that sadly seems to have been drowned out by the complaints.

        In fact, quite recently Felipe Massa made a very similar comment to you as well – he was commenting about how people complain today about how the sport is, and then brought up examples from when he was testing as far back as 2001 to show how those who now portray the 2000’s as a golden era were making very similar complaints today. Over time, we are prone to idealise the better parts of those eras and choose to forget the worst parts of it, leaving us with a highly romanticised version of the past that people like Johansson are clinging to.

  5. Lewis Hamilton, who believes he shouldn’t pay taxes, some of which are used for foreign aide (not to mention numerous local social programs) is such a humanitarian for going to Cuba and seeing those who need help. Isn’t that like the neighbour put a huge dent in my car offering to wash it?

    1. It’s not that he doesn’t pay, he just pays in a different country, (the one he resides in) just like I or anyone else would if we chose to reside in warmer climbs.

      1. Warmer climbs like panama etc..

    2. You’re right, it’s a good thing you’re so eager to pay taxes because surely your contribution will impact many more lives than a global superstar’s personal association with Unicef and many other charity programs ;)

    3. I’m sorry, but the current UK government isn’t very strong on upping the aid-budget, so maybe cutting the middle man and giving it to aid directly is actually more efficient Fladers. If you really want to make that argument against someone taking part in a UNICEF program, where his fame might give the program something extra.

      I am all for people paying their taxes, and rich people not being able to hardly pay any taxes by trickery, but I think getting it into discussing Hamilton’s involvement here is not really useful or fair at all.

    4. tgu (@thegrapeunwashed)
      20th August 2017, 11:06

      Fladers, DC and Button also lived in Monaco. Schumacher had a sweet deal with the Swiss authorities. Why is it only Hamilton who people like you feel the need to rant about?

      1. @thegrapeunwashed

        Yep, noone has ever ranted about anyone else than Hamilton.

        Maybe if you look outside the comments field to a Hamilton charity event you will find that Schumacher, Dc, Button etc. has taken their share of public beating aswell.

        1. tgu (@thegrapeunwashed)
          20th August 2017, 14:04

          @rethla, just point me to some evidence – I’ve been following F1 for years and I don’t remember these drivers getting even 1% of the stick Hamilton receives.

          1. @thegrapeunwashed
            Just a few days ago it was a heated Schumacher discussion following his relative driving his old F1 car. Im sure you can find it and many others if you just search for news where those persons are mentioned.

            You must also understand there is a slight difference between a highly active current wdc contender and retired drivers which hasnt been relevant for almost a Verstappen lifetime.

            Look for news from 2000 if you truly wanna get the good stuff.

          2. Ive been following F1 for years and don’t remember Lewis getting 1% of the stick that Schumi ever did, I don’t remember any driver ever getting as much stick as Schumacher did, ever !

          3. tgu (@thegrapeunwashed)
            21st August 2017, 8:49

            @rethla @greg-c

            Schumacher got stick for being a cheat, but I don’t remember people constantly bringing his tax status into every discussion about him. Nor did they do so with DC or Button. The article mentions Hamilton’s UNICEF work, there is no reason to whine about his tax status – even less so when it is something common to most of the big earners in the sport.

      2. @thegrapeunwashed, it should be said that there has been a long history of drivers moving abroad for tax purposes, not just in the UK but across the world.

        If you looked at just those who won the World Drivers Championship, our of the 33 who have won the title, at least 19 are known to have been tax exiles – every single driver who has won the WDC from 1985 inclusive to today, with the exception of Alonso (who used to be domiciled in Switzerland up until a couple of years ago, when he agreed to pay some tax in Spain), are tax exiles.

        It’s not a new phenomenon either – Jim Clark, back in the 1960’s, is the earliest known example that I am aware of: if you look back to that era, one reason why Graham Hill tended to do more testing for Lotus than Clark did was because Clark couldn’t spend too many days in the UK because he’d lose his status as being domiciled in Switzerland (whereas Hill did still reside in the UK).

    5. If famous and rich people stop thinking Cuba is beautiful this should help those childrens way more. The problem there is a dictatoship, taxes and UNICEF can’t do nothing.

      1. Evil Homer (@)
        23rd August 2017, 14:26

        Does Lewis dodge tax by living abroad??
        That’s an outcry – how dare he!! :)

        I get why some people see why this isn’t great but look at the REALLY rich and see what happens (Sorry to tell you folk, Lewis is unbelievably wealthy to us, but he is such a small fish on a global scale).

        Monaco is a tax haven in they don’t pay income tax like most countries, but they pay ‘consumer tax’ on goods and services – being 18% I think (maybe 16%). So in a high wealth society they still pay a lot of tax as they a high consumers (paying tax on a consumption level rather than earning capacity is something I fully agree with).

        Senna, Rosberg……………….. keep naming them (Formula E Champ Lucas Di Grasi does) all reside there to keep their wealth – who wouldn’t ??

    6. Fladers. Hmm so what have you done this last week to try to make the world a better place???
      I know that Hamilton just highlighted a social education initiative to 4.7 Million twitter followers. Some will hopefully donate to Unicef.

      Today i donated money for cancer research.

      So what have you done this week?

  6. Sundar Srinivas Harish
    20th August 2017, 7:27

    Formula One (or any other sport, for that matter) is seen as a legitimate career these days, and not just a vocation or hobby. Therefore, it is fair to say that F1 drivers, and others working for F1 teams, are under the employ of the teams they are contracted to, and hence have the right to work in an environment that is hazard free. Regarding Johanssen’s comments about Bianchi’s “freak accident”, if it happened once, it is entirely possible that it will happen again, not to mention half-a-dozen other potential incidents that could occur. IMO, improved safety and the alleged deterioration in quality of racing is just a matter of correlation, not causation.

    1. Formula One is seen as a legitimate career these days,

      You do know there are only 20 Formula 1 drivers in the whole world, don’t you? Anything that makes you earn in millions is a legitimate career.

      [they] have the right to work in an environment that is hazard free.

      They also the the right not to be F1 drivers. F1 exists for the sole benefit of those taking part in it, rather than social demand like almost any other industry. Because as opposed to bakers, electricians, doctors, builders, firemen etc. the society does not need F1 drivers. At all. It is their own, i.e. competitors’, endeavour. Just like climbing Mount Everest or jumping with a parashoot.

      The purpose of a bottle company is to produce bottles. This environment should be 100% hazard free if only possible and there’s not a single factor that would justify compromising that goal.

      But the purpose of F1 is to drive super fast cars around racing tracks for entertainment and competition, with a particular sports identity as a marketing quality. So hazard is an innate quality of F1’s purpose itself.
      It is possible to make F1 100% SAFE = close the cockpits, limit the car speed to 50km/h. Done.
      But we won’t do that, since it denies the purpose of the whole thing. And so you wouldn’t want it either, right? You wouldn’t want the 100% hazard free F1.
      In balancing those two opposing aspects, the purpose can’t not take the priority. We can only produce safety around the purpose of F1 [track safety, audience safety, competition procedures etc.]

      1. We can only produce safety around the purpose of F1 in an unrestricted manner.*

      2. Sundar Srinivas Harish
        21st August 2017, 1:20

        It is possible to make F1 100% SAFE = close the cockpits, limit the car speed to 50km/h. Done.

        I don’t get why everyone believes the only way to make the sport safe is to reduce it to a drive in the city. Some of the world’s best minds are (supposedly) involved in formulating the regulations, and surely they can come up with solutions that compromise neither on safety, nor on speed.

    2. Jonathan Parkin
      20th August 2017, 18:29

      “It’s happened once there’s no reason why it can’t happen again.” Murray Walker expressed that same sentiment during a GP not once but twice.

  7. Smart man that Stefan Johansson. A Smart Man

    1. marcelh, the thing is, when we look at the attitude of the likes of Johansson in the article that Keith has linked to, I can’t help but feel that Johansson’s views are being shaped by the fact that his era in F1 had a considerably laxer attitude towards serious injuries and fatalities.

      In the years that he was racing in F1, Depailler and de Angelis was killed in testing crashes, Streiff was left as a quadriplegic due to a testing crash, Regazzoni was left paralysed from the waist down due to spinal injuries, Laffite was forced to retire due to leg injuries, Brundle was left with severe leg injuries that he never fully recovered from and Piquet Sr suffered from cranial injuries that still affect his health to this day.

      Furthermore, in his subsequent career in IndyCAR, Johansson would have also seen Danny Sullivan retire due to injuries he sustained in racing, whilst Johansson himself was involved in a crash which killed both the driver Jeff Krosnoff and a trackside marshal (Gary Avrin) who was hit by Krosnoff’s car.

      1. Good old times.

        1. @rethla, are you seriously celebrating multiple fatal accidents and serious injuries as being “good old times”?

          1. Yes, i dont se a problem with people risking getting injured doing what they and their fans love.

      2. Anon, you are right there. But Johansson is also right in the fact that most if not all deadly incidents are freak incidents unlikely to be repeated in any case. No one is against improving general safety to prevent injuries in generic incidents like you described. Front, side, rear impact zones, tethers on the wheels, HANS device, monocock etc etc all fine and prevent generic incidents.
        But that is not the case for the HALO, it is only there because of what happend to Bianchi, al other reason are just stuck on to it to legitimize the introduction.

        F1 is already really save, the death before Biancho was 20 year earlier and these where Senna and Ratzenberger.

        A question: When was the last crash where some got out injured not able to drive the next race?
        Only one i can remember is Schumacher driving into a tirewall and breaking his leg, but don’t even know the year.
        Is there a list ?

        1. Well Alonso crashed last year and was replaced by Vandoorne. This year Pascal crashed and was replaced but it wasnt a crash in F1.

          Other drivers have been close.

          1. Found some data

            Alonso 2016 Fractured rib ( 2 races)
            Bottas 2015 cracked disk (2 races)
            Alonso 2014 concussion (1 race)
            Raikonnen 2013 trapped nerve (1 race)
            Perez 2011 concussion (1 race)
            Glock 2009 Cracked vertebra ( ??)
            Massa 2009 Cracked skull (??)
            Kubica 2007 foot, concussion

            10 Years 8 minor and 1 major injury, I can not call F1 a dangerous sport.

        2. marcelh, on the contrary, a number of those inventions on your list were opposed when introduced – for example, even after Brundle and Lafitte suffered from severe leg injuries, the teams fought back against a change to the front crash structure and having the drivers feet moved behind the front axle line until the FIA forced the change through in 1988.

          With the HANS device, that actually faced quite a bit of opposition to begin with – bear in mind that the original prototypes were built in 1989 and drag racers were already beginning to adopt the device in 1996, but drivers in many series, from F1 through to sportscar racing and NASCAR, did not want to use it until Earnhardt’s death due to the very sort of basal skull fracture that the device was intended to prevent (Earnhardt having tragically been one driver who was vociferously against it). Even then, there were still drivers who said they would rather “trust to luck” than wear the HANS device for several years – however, I doubt that many drivers would now race without such a device.

          With regards to drivers having to miss races due to injury, whilst you cite Schumacher in the 1999 British GP, I’m surprised that you have forgotten about Perez in 2011 having to withdraw from the Canadian GP after suffering from after effects from his crash in Monaco. Before that, you had Timo Glock having to miss the final three races in 2009 after a piece of debris punched through the cockpit and injured his leg, along with a cracked vertebrae, whilst Ralf Schumacher also missed a third of the 2004 season after he broke multiple vertebrae in a crash.

          1. Anon,

            Actually you are confirming what i am saying.
            Al those incidents you mention where incidents that where very common at the time, and was reacted to by adapting the safety in those areas.
            And yes i did and do not understand why the teams and drivers resisted the safety solutions.

            But the HALO is introduced for a freak, probably one time, incident. A driver that drives to fast under yellow in the rain and plows into a crane that should not have been there at that time.
            If any than the solution should be a limiter on the car on Yellow and no cars and cranes on track a the same time.

    2. It’s grim but people do get accustomed to death, de sensitive one may say, death is one of the few certainties in life, in existence, we all die. As a result of the first ww people got a different perspective of life in the 20’s and the same may be said after the ww2, generations that were not shielded from death, almost thrived on it. I’m sure drivers of the 50’s 60’s and 70’s mustn’t bat an eye for the risks involved, it was a given.

  8. “Like all sports, it’s the heroes that make the fans come and watch, not the boffin in the back of the garage….”

    At this stage I don’t care if F1 drivers are meant to be absolute heroes risking their lives every time they step inside the cockpit. And I could care less about what was happening 40-50 years ago. I don’t need athletes or sportspeople to be my heroes, specially F1 drivers. They are performers driving really expensive race cars built by hundreds of talented engineers. Many people in many other professions ‘actually’ deserve that admiration. Find some reality, folks…. how much actual effect does this halo have on F1 other than increasing the safety?

    And regarding the boffins mentioned by Stefan Johansson, they are the ones who create & build the machines. You heroes are all glorified ‘performers’. But that’s what we are used to for many decades now. Actors are worshiped, not the screenwriters or directors. People loose their bearings over the mention of Steve Jobs, yet very few remember the folks who gave us the lower level programming languages.

    1. Decades?
      Try millenniums ;)

      1. Millennia?

        I’ll get my coat.

  9. Meanwhile, it’s Pocono 500 race day and IndyCar doesn’t have a Halo and so far there is no Halo on the new IndyCar for next year. Is IndyCar not as worried about safety as FIA or just not being sued by a driver family?

    1. @dusty, Indycar are working on a similar device at the moment – they stated several months ago that the 2018 spec car is been designed with the intention to integrate cockpit protection measures at a later date, and they have already stated that they will be testing a range of different devices during the 2018 season. They are just as worried about safety – they’re just starting later than the FIA has.
      https://www.motorsport.com/indycar/news/indycar-to-test-new-driver-head-protection-on-2018-car-919458/

  10. I really don’t get some of the comments & articles since the Halo was announced that seem to be suggesting that the Halo will somehow make the sport less exciting & less interesting because the danger aspect is somehow important in seeing the drivers as heroes.

    The Halo improves an aspect of driver safety but it’s not as if it takes away the overall danger or excitement of the sport. I look at something Anthony Davidson said on the Sky broadcast where he spoke about how driving a fully enclosed LMP car doesn’t make him feel any less of a hero as when he was in an open cockpit car & about how there is still just as much a risk of injury/death in open or closed cockpit when your traveling at the speeds they do. He also said that if a driver is injured or killed by been hit in the head by debris from somebody else’s accident that he doesn’t feel thats fair & that if something can be done to prevent that scenario then it’s only right that they do it.

    The Halo will help protect drivers from been struck on the head in certain situations, It will improve that aspect of safety…. However F1 will still be dangerous, It will still be fast, It will still be thrilling & exciting to watch cars go through Eau Rouge & it will at the end of the day have zero impact on the actual racing.

    If you think F1 needs to be dangerous & that things like the Halo take away from that then where do you draw the line? High cockpit sides, Hans device, Seat belts, The crash/roll structures, wheel tethers? All of those things improved an element of safety in the same way the Halo is & just like the Halo none of those things changed the excitement or thrill of seeing the cars blasting around Spa at 200mph, None of those things had any real impact on the racing & again just like the Halo they improved safety but didn’t remove the overall danger because again as Anthony Davidson said racing around at 200mph is still going to be dangerous no matter what you do.

    Literally the only valid argument against the Halo is the aesthetics but IMO safety is far more important than aesthetics.

    1. The issue with the halo is that F1 is supposed to be an open cockpit series. If society is too precious for the risk then just close the cockpit. Sticking this abomination on the car and pretending it’s still an open cockpit formula is a bad joke.

      Also, if you are so safety focused why not slow the cars? Or are you putting speed above safety?

      I’m switching to MotoGP and IOM TT. I think I’ll also try Indy car again.

      1. If people are so safety focused why not take driver out of the car??

      2. It’s not about society been against the risk or whatever, It’s about seeing an area where safety could be improved, Having a solution for that problem & implementing it.

        It was the same with every other safety improvement. Take driver head protection 20 years ago, They saw it as an issue after some of the accidents in 1994/1995 & introduced the higher cockpit sides/padding for 1996. It’s the same now, They have identified an area where safety could be improved, Have found a viable solution & are bringing it in.

        Indycar BTW are looking at doing the same & there drivers are far more universally in favor of doing so & far more vocal in pushing for it than what you hear in F1. I think they are planning to test some concept’s on the 2018 car before the end of this year.
        http://www.racer.com/indycar/item/127020-indycar-drivers-react-to-f1-halos

        1. The difference is that none of the safety improvements you list change the fundamental nature of F1. The Halo does. Just retire the open cockpit formula and close the cockpit and be done with it. Or don’t. The Halo is a cowardly and ugly half measure

          And again I’ve identified and area where we could make further improvements: restrict speed.

          Stay away from Motorbike racing please.

  11. The UK is becoming a safe haven for rich fugitives. Vijay Mallya, Lalit Modi, Vorayuth Yoovidhya…..and the list goes on.

  12. If we lose a driver and it is revealed a halo device would have saved him, everyone knows that the FIA and F1 would be crucified enmasse. There have been too many incidents in recent years. I know it’s not like the old days, and if that were the case Eau Rouge would be bordered by hale bales and fans eating ham baguettes. Times change!

  13. I am going to go out on a limb and say viewership will be down next year.
    But it’s better to lose fan support and ratings than it is a driver

  14. so then lets not wait till we have a fatality to introduce full bumpers all around. and lets not wait for a fatality to introduce airbags. and lets not wait for a fatality to introduce ABS. etc etc etc

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