Halo visibility “not great” – Vettel

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In the round-up: Sebastian Vettel admits the revised Halo still poses visibility problems.

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More brake problems were at the root of the last-lap drama involving the two Mercedes drivers in Austria – a common problem for the team in recent seasons:

When you have a second a lap in hand over rivals, isn’t there the margin there to improve the braking capacity a bit so that they don’t give up on a driver for doing anything other than driving to a delta up front to the flag?

I know there is a compound effect. Slightly heavier brakes, slightly compromised aerodynamics, slightly higher fuel usage and so on, but they have at some tracks such a huge margin they can swallow some of that up to reliably get to the finish surely?

If they wind up fighting Red Bull and Ferrari next year they’ll need to do it anyway.
Philip (@Philipgb)

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Mark Webber claimed pole position for the British Grand Prix five years ago today, beating team mate Sebastian Vettel:

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Keith Collantine
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37 comments on “Halo visibility “not great” – Vettel”

  1. The crash had nothing to do with DRS. Rosberg made a mistake in turn 1 and Hamilton used the slipstream. Hamilton spent a number of laps behind Rosberg in the DRS in various parts of the race and made little impact on the final lap.

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      9th July 2016, 8:22

      Nico had a brake-by-wire failure onto the last straight” Toto Wolff.
      @addimaf1, maybe that’s the reason for the ‘mistake in turn 1’ you refer to.

      1. Yeah Rosberg ruined his brakes trying to stay ahead of Hamilton. Still, he lost the gap because he clipped the apex too much. If he had a brake problem you’d expect him to miss the apex instead.

      2. @coldfly, the central thrust of @addimaf1‘s argument still holds though – the whole rant turns on Stefan being mislead by the interviewer who repeatedly tells him, quite wrongly, that Hamilton was using his DRS to catch Rosberg in the run between Turns 1 and 2 (when we all know that the DRS cannot be used in that section of the track).

        The Hamilton-Rosberg clash had nothing to do with DRS – everybody is in agreement that the whole sequence of events started with Rosberg’s slow exit from Turn 1 (the cause of which can be debated), which allowed Hamilton to catch up with him on the run into Turn 2.

        Those factors are unchanged by the presence or absence of DRS, so Stefan’s comments about the crash are based on assumptions which are completely false. It is an extremely poor piece of journalism on the part of the interviewer to, even if it was completely unintentional, mislead Stefan and push him to make comments based on the interviewer’s mistakes.

  2. then go get aeroscreen !

    1. Evil Homer (@)
      9th July 2016, 15:05

      Or leave as is!

  3. Funny how Kimi had no problem with the visibility with the halo but Seb is rather the opposite. Although Kimi is an emotionless person, surely if he had a problem with the halo he’d say something.

    1. Indeed, but speaking of which, Seb’s opinion shouldn’t be undervalued of course (as a few may think when comparing his to Kimi’s). I suppose it’s slightly comparable (but on a different scale) to the triangle that the windscreen wipers leave. It goes unnoticed by some people, but others (me), it irritates the hell out of.

    2. I don’t know. I remember back in 2009 that Kimi Raikkonen had a problem with the engine kill setting button’s location on the Ferrari but forgot to mention it until Giancarlo Fisichella hit the button accidentally in Brazil qualifying (note that was the penultimate race of the season, and the button had been in the same problematic position since pre-season testing). Kimi is the sort of person who doesn’t mention problems if he thinks he can work around them without impeding the car’s capabilities.

    3. @mattypf Vettel also ran it at Barcelona the day before Kimi did & didn’t complain of any visibility issues himself back then.

      Silverstone is a different circuit to Barcelona & one of the concerns with the halo (And other solutions) was that visibility would be a bigger issue at some circuits compared to others.

    4. petebaldwin (@)
      9th July 2016, 11:14

      @mattypf1 – Not true. “Former world champion Kimi Raikkonen, who did two laps with it on Thursday, said his view was “a bit limited in the front” but said the design could still be tweaked.” – March 2016

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/35723675

      Vettel said “you can see what you need to see” which doesn’t mean there is no impact on visibility.

    5. Funny how Raikonnen tested a different version of the Halo than Vettel did….

  4. Grosjean might not feel desperate about a Ferrari seat, but he kinda should. He joined Haas to get back on the spotlight after some obscure years at Lotus, and he’s done that yet Ferrari chose Kimi instead. And another year will go by, the driver market will open up again, and Grosjean will be stuck like Hulkenberg was when he was at his prime: Ferrari might be thinking about the next great driver around, not a old guy trying to step up the ladder.

    Ferrari chose Kimi, which shows how conservative they are with the driver choices. We love the Iceman, but he’s been quite bad since rejoining Ferrari. Even if he’s tied on point with Vettel. Didn’t anyone else feel that the old Kimi would’ve found a way past Verstappen at Spain? or he’d have overtaken Button much quicker at Austria? it feels like he’s dragging himself along, not the Kimi we saw in McLaren. So he’s basically filling a gap for Ferrari at the moment…

    And it says a lot that they didn’t chose Grosjean to fill that gap. 2018 could be too late, he’s already 30 years old now and Leclerc might be ready by then.

    1. And not just Ferrari, btw. I mention Ferrari because it seems like the most obvious link between Grosjean and a top team.

    2. pastaman (@)
      9th July 2016, 0:58

      What gives you any indication that they would bring on someone as young as Leclerc? Not Ferrari’s style, they’ll place him in another team first.

      1. @pastaman that’s true, but they won’t hire an old guy either. And maybe they will follow Red Bull steps and take Leclerc to Haas as early as next year? who knows.

        Grosjean wanted to do well at Haas to make himself visible before stepping up and covering Ferrari’s awkward gap between Raikkonen and the next guy. But with Kimi being rehired, I doubt that chance will appear later. In any case, 2018 will be too late for Romain, and even if they hire him then, he might just fill the gap for only that year before 2019 when Leclerc or whoever is ready.

        1. pastaman (@)
          9th July 2016, 3:03

          Still not sure why you think 2018 is too late for Grosjean? 30 is not old by Ferrari standards.

    3. Kimi is the only Ferrari F1 Champion left on the grid, as long as he’s keeping close to Seb in the points, and not causing problems in the team, they’ve got no reason to replace him.
      I’d love to see them follow Red Bull’s example and give one of the younger drivers a chance, but that’s not the Ferrari way of doing things.

      1. ColdFly F1 (@)
        9th July 2016, 8:38

        @beneboy, you are absolutely right with your first statement:
        “Kimi is the only Ferrari F1 Champion left on the grid, as long as he’s keeping close to Seb in the points, and not causing problems in the team,”. But I would have finished it like this: “that’s the only reason they have not to replace him.”

        I’d rather see Grosjean, Bottas, Perez, Hulkenberg, Sainz, or even Rosberg in that seat for 2017. I believe that all would be as solid as Kimi over a full season, and for sure some could be a good match with Vettel.

    4. @fer-no65 It’s Gutierrez that’s hurting his career right now. We know Ferrari don’t want drivers like Grosjean, who’s childish and average.

  5. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
    9th July 2016, 1:43

    Lol at Hamilton’s ignorance on the Senna quote. Some fan he is.

    1. I just can’t stand the over-idolising of Senna. He was a great driver and a great man, but he’s not the bible. And more importantly, he was driving in a different era, what applied then doesn’t necessarily hold the same truth or meaning now. What especially irritates me (and many other people) is how Hamilton tries to be the new Senna. He’s not.

      1. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
        9th July 2016, 2:26

        @come-on-kubica it’s hard to quote well when you’re being interviewed – your brain can draw blanks about your mother’s name or what you ate yesterday:-) seriously, it can…

        @strontium It’s good for anyone to have an idol and I’ve personally always like how Hamilton has expressed his wish to emulate Senna in his career.

        1. ColdFly F1 (@)
          9th July 2016, 8:49

          I doubt that @freelittlebirds!
          I’ll ask Lasagna who cooked Maria for me yesterday.

    2. Are you actually serious? Never heard of the word “paraphrasing”?

      The pedantry….it hurts so much.

  6. The actual quote of Senna’s that Hamilton is referencing is “if you no longer go for for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver.”

    1. Evil Homer (@)
      9th July 2016, 15:12

      That’s correct, I think that was the infamous interview with Sir Jackie Stewart in 1989.

      I love Sir Jackie but he was a real **** in that interview !! He should not have been a pall bearing for Ayrton! They just didn’t get along.

  7. I don’t agree with cotd. You don’t learn anything by stepping back. Merc is still trying and if they were running lighter but less durable brakes what will end up happening is Merc running both lighter and durable brakes, it is by exploring the limits that you move forward in f1, they’ve seen other teams lose their edge and they don’t want to repeat their mistakes.

  8. So they try to protect the drivers by making them harder to actually see what’s happening ahead of them. I guess it could result in not spotting a flag, a steward, debris…

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      9th July 2016, 8:54

      … your teammate!

    2. @f1mre This aint exactly the first vision impairing safetyfeature on an F1 car. Nothing new.

      They sat on top of the car with only thin goggles in the start you know.

  9. @CotD, they need brakes to be extremeley hot, to heat the wheels, that heat the tires… And help them get that awesome advantage.

    Cooling the brakes a bit more, would hurt their tires and reduce aero performance. How do you know how much performance can you sacrifice?

    And finally will either Nico or Lewis sacrifice some performance to the other one? What if one of them heats up brakes more than the other? Do they reduce performance for him?

    Lots of tough questions, Mercedes run it on the limit, mostly seaking best performance. Clearly intending to get stacks of speed, then manage brakes in the race by sacrificing some lap time once brakes are marginal.

  10. Not surprised by Vettel’s response, I was surprised by Kimi’s response in testing though, I am starting to get a feeling Kimi yeah that’s fine let’s just get on with other stuff in his usual lack of really giving a crap about anything way (which I normally find brilliant about the man)

  11. Aeroscreen was dangerous for the head and now halo affects vision,leave the f1 how it is right now or nobody will watch it by 2018

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