It is, of course, a matter of opinion. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so they say, but I really don’t like the Formula 1 halo. I know a lot of people are saying the same thing and others are saying that we should stop whingeing and get on with it, but I have to say that I whole-heartedly agree with Toto Wolff’s view that he would get rid of them.
“If you give me a chainsaw I would take it off,” he said. “I think we need to look after the driver’s safety but what we have implemented is aesthetically not appealing. We need to come up with a solution that simply looks better. It’s a massive weight on the top of the car, you screw up the centre of gravity massively.”
We all understand what the halo is supposed to do but this is not sleek, its not sexy and it ruins the elegant lines of F1 cars. The haloes look like afterthoughts. They are ugly.
But it is more than that. Formula 1 is supposed to be about heroes. The men driving the cars are meant to be skilled and brave, the best of the best. Top guns. Risk is key to the popularity of motorsport and so removing all danger is dangerous for the future of the sport. Having said that real racing drivers will drive anything to the limit and the more protection there is, the more risks they will take, so perhaps that will translate into the spectacle I am talking about. We can hope…
If it is only about driving talent then perhaps we could all be happy with e-races, but for me these are seriously underwhelming. Yes, the people driving are obviously skilful, but the courage they require is 100 percent virtual. The worst that can happen to them is that they might stub a toe when getting into their seat. I am not inspired by it at all. Heroes have the courage to do dangerous things and if what they do is no longer dangerous, then they tend to lose their glamour. It is a little like trying to compare the Dambusters with drone operators, sitting in air bases in Nevada.
I struggle to understand how an event like the Isle of Man TT can continue each year, killing people at a regular rate and providing fans with something to marvel at. How can that survive in its current form while F1 has to be mollycoddled with these mechanical aberrations? Is it simply because the bikers look differently at their own sport and anyone professing to be a lawyer is impolitely shown the door? I suspect that this is the answer.
The reality now is that the only way that F1 can rid itself of the halo is by finding something better that does the same job. If one listens to lawyers then one is told that if one knows that something related to safety could be better and something goes wrong, the fact that one knew there was a better option but did nothing about it, is deemed to be negligence. Drivers can sign any release they like, but their families can still take legal action on the basis that the FIA would be negligent not to have had head protection in place.
The best solution from the point of view of spectacle is to work on the concept of a fighter canopy. A windscreen is probably not better than a halo. It is just a parallel choice. I’d love to see canopies and drivers inside without helmets (why do you need them any longer?) but the truth is that head and neck devices require the head to be restrained by some means and the helmet does that job, so we cannot really do that, although I’d love to be able to see the faces of the drivers. It would add to the charisma of the sport…
joeblogsf1 
If canopies are implemented, what about open-face helmets? Those wouldn’t interfere with the HANS would they?
No, there’s no reason why the HANS wouldn’t work. Presumably rally drivers use them already? I think WEC drivers wear full-face helmets, though.
And so say all of us !!!!!! Absolutely abomination. If you don’t like F1 not having a halo. DON’T GET IN THE CAR. SIMPLES…
I for one don’t agree. Sure I would rather they not be there, now that they are though I accept them, and do not think that they’re horrible at all. And I do know that one day a drivers life will be saved.
I completely agree with this. Unfortunately it won’t get any better now that the genie is out of the bottle, and now that the commercial rights holder is a publicly-listed American corporation.
Aside from the halo, these long-wheelbase cars are visually cringe-worthy. Proportionally they look completely “wrong”.
remote control from the pits!! that is the answer, then the drivers could have a chat during the race and no safety cars would be needed!!
I agree wholeheartedly. The halo on an F1 car is like drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. The Indy car shield is much more aesthetically pleasing. Both have their limitations in protecting the driver. As much as they are hated. they aren’t going to go away. Should a driver get injured without one, massive lawsuits would apply. A full canopy in inevitable in the sport. ‘ The ‘pen cockpit’ cars we loved are now a thing of the past. Go for a full canopy now, not later and be done with it. The full canopy ‘concept’ cars have been gorgeous.
The argument for halo is that you must do everything possible to avoid a driver dying, because halo would not have prevented any F1 deaths (or Massa’s injury for that matter).
So why not remove the driver entirely and make it an AI driving series? I am not interested in F1 racing for the first time in 40 years, but this might make me take an interest again.
The teams cannot really innovate on the car – we will never see anything as innovative as the fan car, the 6-wheeled car with the current rules or wings on stilts – so why not let them “innovate” in the area of driving?
An automated car would certainly have more personality than many of the current drivers.
Ah so you’re the one roborace fan. Enjoy that.
Or if you don’t want to wait just start a racing game and park your car up. Then you can watch the AI race.
Unfortunately our society is so heavily litigious these days that although the drivers may understand the risks the families don’t when accidents happen and try to find blame so they can make a claim . See the actions of the families of Maria de Villota and Jules Bianchi.
This is why we end up with the halo. It doesn’t necessarily protect drivers from all danger but it does protect the teams and FIA.
I think there might be some interest in automated cars, given the media interest in Telsa et al.
Real AI controlled cars would be more exciting than a computer game.
I watch MotoGP for proper racing…
An enclosed cockpit may reduce the connection between spectator and driver but if no helmet was necessary then we could have face forward cameras on the drivers, it would make for great tv.
” S ” same here… real men race MotoGP. You can actually see the riders . I’m finished with F1 after 50 years of following it.
I couldn’t agree more. It is an ugly bodge, only half thought out and half effective. It would not have protected Massa from being hit by the spring falling of Barachello’s Brawn. Engineering solutions, especially in F1 should be effective and elegant. This is only half effective and no at all elegant.
I felt seeing the prototype version of the aeroscreen on indy cars, that this looked a lot better than the halo. Whether it offers equivalent protection is moot. I suspect it might offer better protection for small objects like bolts or stones but inferior for large objects like a loose wheel and tyre. I am sure that the drivers brains and visions would soon accommodate to the distortions inevitable in looking through a curved transparent object at anything other than right angles.
The screen in Indycar is a similar spec to that of a fighter jet and is apparently free of distortion.
The aeroscreen failed the FIA’s tests on two counts – it didn’t actually stop a wheel and the driver’s head can potentially strike the rim of it. The first could be improved upon, but the second issue is more problematic. You’d have to make the screen huge in order to replicate the void the halo has.
Besides that it’s ugly is that you can’t see who is driving the car, not from the front and not from the side. it was already very difficult to see who was driving the car with the small numbers nut at least you could see the helmet. The aesthetics is one thing but not be able to see who is driving is going to kill the sport.
Don’t you think it ironic that it is Toto Wolf, head of the team that originally dreamed up the idea of the Halo, that now sides with the vocal group espousing its hate?
In his position, he was the first team principal to know the device, and how it looked, and it follows that he was also the first who could have done something about it. Yet he didn’t, and so we have the Halo now.
But I’m not going to totally single-out Toto here, cause you can throw in with him every other executive-level team personnel that has already or will soon join this pointless campaign. They, much like Toto, just maybe a bit later, all had the option to form a team and have them come up with a better solution.
Red Bull tested one almost two years ago, only to seemingly abandon it. There was that other test in Silverstone last year (IMHO a political demonstration rather than a test of an actual near-term alternative), which didn’t have any follow-up either.
The leading Formula 1 teams are huge engineering houses with access to vast resources that have apparently all decided that not doing and trying to delay (if not derail) the introduction of the Halo was the best way going forward. And then the FIA got tired of their game and called their bluff.
I’d really like to see what these teams could come up with, but maybe their new strategy is to join the negative PR campaign trying to get rid of the extra head protection? Which would be a particularly stupid way to shoot themselves in the food, with what is hopefully another exciting season of close racing coming up.
In fairness, the original MB concept halo looked a little (but not much) better than the final version of it. The teams presumably were asked by the FIA for proposals for protective devices that would mitigate possible cockpit invasions and the halo was MB’s proposal. RB offered the aeroscreen, which was rejected after being tested by Vettel, who could not adapt to the distortions. Scott Dixon, in IndyCar, was able to adapt, or said that he believed he would be able to adapt after his test last week.
“after being tested by Vettel, who could not adapt to the distortions. Scott Dixon, in IndyCar, was able to adapt”
IndyCar shield is curved in one direction. The F1 solution was curved in two. It isn’t about “adapting”. One was distorting vision and the other was not.
Agreed about the halo… On canopies, there was a report in Motoring News in the early 70’s of a CanAm race, in which Ronnie Peterson finished 2nd in a March 711 fitted with an experimental canopy. The circuit included a pontoon bridge, and the report was published on April Fool’s Day.
But the idea of seeing faces again is a good one. It reminded me of an anecdote from the memoirs of Jim Clark’s friend and early sponsor Ian Scott-Watson, recalling Charterhall in the late 50’s:
“I well remember one meeting in which I had entered my DKW in the same race as various well-known sports cars and drivers… On this particular occasion there was a Le Mans start and much to my embarrassment I had been drawn no.2 on the grid, next to Les Leston. John Dick Peddie acted as starter and limped his way up the length of the serried rank of cars. Half way up he let out a stentorian bellow:
“Number Two – where’s your crash helmet?”
“Saloon car, Sir!” I yelled back, and he carried on.”
I’m not sure seeing faces is that important, but one of the innovations I’ve enjoyed in BTCC is the ability for the commentators to talk to the drivers during safety car periods and on warm-up laps. It’s probably impractical for F1, where drivers have so much more management of the car to do, but it’s nice to hear Jason Plato have a big moan mid-race.
“If you give me a chainsaw I would take it off,” I have such a saw if Toto needs one. Oh the Isle of Mann. Maybe “Mann” says it all.
I understand the sentiments expressed here, but I also remember a time in the late sixties early seventies where week after week my heros died to the point where I got seriously turned off being a fan. You, Joe also remember these times, so the question for me would be how far would you feel comfortable winding the clock back, in terms of car and circuit safety? When did F1 have that balance about right?
You’re over estimating Joe’s age. At that time he was only starting to go to kindergarten.
Drivers may be forced to wear a helmet inside a canopy, but at least it could be open face like rally drivers and some saloon car drivers do. Although I guess most of them would want tinted visors. Back to square one.
It depends on which country safety litigation is taking place. Obviously in USA many states allow litigation on fault. Europe however has decades of litigation and legislation based upon principles of reasonable practicability. That is not mitigate any percieved hazard at any cost.
That is why Hazardous industry can operate on such basis without going out of business. There may be residual risks but they are so low, they can be tolerated
The trouble is FIA, though it likes to be seen as technological, is based in old values of non-systematic identification and physical testing only. It is very strange as suitable and sufficient risk assessment has been part of Petroleum Industry regulation for more than 40 years. Indeed, I was working on development of tools and techniques in the mid-80s as a member of BP Group Safety Centre and later a complete risk assessment tool of transport of hazardous materials by road, rail & water for the UK Health & Safety Commission.
So if FIA was really interested in safety they should be looking at the European Safety Management methods used for decades to characterised the risks of injury or death of all people present at a race circuit. In fact much of this should already exist for any European based team/factory under EU legislation!
I wonder how much of this path can be traced back to the Bianchi accident, or more specifically his family taking legal action against the FIA.
I suspect the Isle of Man TT would be in trouble too if it were the subject of such a lawsuit.
All of it….
Except the FIA Safety Institute has been working on cockpit head injuries for over a decade. Why? Because impacts and near misses happen.
However the Safety Directors are all committed physical testers. Dead weight loads and crash tests. Its all very well attempting to mitigate such a hazard, but a real safety engineer would do a far wider identification of hazards and how they happen, through to the RISK (frequency or probability) of injury or death.
Also, as in law, after looking at control/mitigation methods the question is what level of risk is so insignificant that it can be tolerated.
Yes Martin. And what did we learn from/in those 10 years?
Does anyone know why the FIA/FOM and Suzuka race promoter weren’t charged with criminal negligence by allowing an industrial crane inside the FIA mandated safety barriers on that fateful day in 2014?
Instead the FIA was prompted to move forward with a ‘head protection’ safety design that would have done nothing to prevent the lethal consequences of a fast moving, low slung F1 car striking a 5 ton steel crane.
If they had spent a decade researching the best design to protect a driver’s head and the result is this Monkey Bar add-on, it says to me that either the design part of FIA’s research & design is woefully lacking or something more cynical than even I, as a cynical F1 fan, could abide.
Because it was rightly deemed the most effective way if removing a crashed car and Bianchi was driving too fast. It is very clear.
If it is deemed the right way…why isn’t it standard (unsafe) practice at all tracks?
Seemed to me the Suzuka race promoter received a special dispensation that defies common sense.
Martin Brundle narrowly missed a fatal collision with a crane – wasn’t that part of the effort to keep the massive steel devices on the other side of the barriers?
Joe, do you believe the tragic Bianchi accident was a key impetus to implementing the Halo?
Take a look at Suzuka on Google Earth and it may help you understand the specific problem at that corner and why the mobile crane was the best answer. Having fixed cranes might be possible but that would mean more marshals running about and being exposed to risk. The only option is to strike Suzuka from the calendar and I doubt any real fan would want to see that. No matter how one looks at the accident one comes back to the very sad conclusion that Bianchi was driving too fast in the circumstances. The warnings were all there but he did not heed them. It is also so very sad that the entire operation to collect the other car was almost completed when he arrived. It was just a matter of seconds and the outcome would have been different.
I think what angers me about the Bianchi accident is that it came 20 years after Martin Brundle came within inches of going the same way. The VSC is not such an innovative idea that it should have taken so long to implement – we were shown the risks of having a crane on track in 1994.
True, but what was a better solution? It was studied in great depth and the conclusion was that the system was the best available.
If it was studied in great depth prior to 2014…maybe the depth wasn’t that deep.
If I can be so bold, suggest that if a heavy crane must be inside the barriers in the rain on a dark day, then red flag the race. Remove the stricken car, once the crane is safely behind the barriers, restart behind the safety car.
Agree with Kenny, the Virtual Safety Car concept was not so advanced that it could not have been implemented decades earlier.
This is all hindsight speculation, but it appears to me, far from the great halls of FIA due diligence, that most FIA safety changes have been of the knee-jerk variety. Which is possibly for the best, if the Halo is the result of a decade of work in the FIA’s proactive safety development program.
I like the look of the cars….but hate the flip flop fitted.
I do not want drivers killed….but this flip flop could kill f1 if no body wants to watch anymore.
Agree 100%.
Having followed Grand Prix racing since the 60s I have witnessed many tradgedies (sadly including ones where I have been at the track when the event occurred). The deaths of Henry Surtees and Justin Wilson convinced me that better head protection was necessary. I agree that the halo isn’t the most elegant solution but it’s a start. With all the expectional engineering brains in F1, hopefully someone can come up with a solution that provides safety as well as aesthetics.
But how many layers of protection are “reasonably practicable” in law?
Henry Surtees was struck by a wheel & upright. It should have been retained by its tethers.
FIA are so good at empirical safety control that it took a year for their strength to catch up with the increased mass of F1 wheels last year.
The latest FIA “don’t tell anyone” is Billy Mongers F4 crash. One would have thought front crash resistant structure striking rear crash resistant structure in line was a perfect crash test but ensuring no serious driver injury. Design fault or specification fault. FIA grabbed the investigation and embargoed any feedback!!
“Henry Surtees was struck by a wheel & upright. It should have been retained by its tethers.”
No. I wish people would stop trotting out this nonsense. The tethers have to be slightly less strong than the tub, otherwise in a big accident they would just pull the tub to pieces. The wheels can and do come free in that situation, but they do still absorb a lot of energy in the process.
Sure as eggs are eggs, halos will be scrapped in a year maybe two, to be replaced by canopies, or by nothing at all, please God.
A driver who deems F1 to be too dangerous [and sees the halo as essential] should really consider another sport that provides total safety. Don’t drivers still sign a legal doc that clearly states,”This Sport Is Dangerous” ?
I share your thoughts and yes, if a driver feels F1 is too risky, head to some sort of tin top.
Canopies and open face helmets, that’d work.
Hi Joe,
Thank you for having the balls to actually say it the way it is.
Thank you for articulating the thoughts of many who feel the same but have no voice to be heard.
Let’s be honest.
The Halo is completely lame. It looks lame, its unnecessary and just makes the cars look ugly and drivers like wimps. Like you said where are the hero’s?
Remember Senna barely being able to lift his arms over his head at Brazil on the podium? What about the thousands of manual gear shifts the big men used to make around Monaco? These are heroes. These halos are not heroes.
Let’s be honest these halo’s are lame. You can’t have mollycoddled gladiators hidden away wrapped in cotton wool and still be seen to be brave, extraordinary or cool, it’s frankly embarrassing.
This whole PC era of F1 has gone too far and jumped the shark and I for one will not be spending another dollar on consuming the sport. So as a 25+ year fan that means: No Pay TV, No Magazines, No Subscriptions Online (Sorry Joe) No merchandise and No Race Attendances. I refuse to pay for a substandard product that is already wildly expensive and offers no real value for money for what’s being offered.
Your point about the Isle Of Man is absolutely spot on. At least we know where to watch some real heroes compete. Between that, Supercross and MotoGP, F1 has its work cut out for it to reclaim any respect when it comes to bravery and being be seen to be pushing limits of man and machine on race tracks.
Like I said the Halo just makes the whole thing look lame and as a device it looks horrendous and like an afterthought. Is this meant to be a shining example of peak engineering on the world’s most sophisticated cars in the world’s most expensive and exclusive sport?? What a complete joke.
Talk about the straw that broke the camels back. How many people do think are going to be rushing in to pay to watch this farce when it goes behind a paywall almost entirely next year? How about the teenager with a halo clad F1 car on his bedroom wall dreaming of being the next, um, er, e-racer? Yeah right.
Nice one Todt. You’re world driver safety crusade is now complete.
#nohalo
“Remember Senna barely being able to lift his arms over his head at Brazil on the podium?”
Do you remember Ayrton Senna dying after being hit in the head with his own front wheel and suspension?
Cemeteries the world over a filled with dead heroes. I’d much rather have seen him race for many more years beyond what early-90s technology afforded him.
And the #halo would have saved him? I do remember it. Saw it live. Did you ever read the back of the ticket at the races? It says Motorsport is dangerous. He knew it and went for it every time in the car because to not take the chance and the gap means you’re no longer a racing driver. It’s about the participant taking managed risk in doing something they love for the thrill.
I’m sure Senna bought a ticket to perform his job.
But besides that particular silliness, are you so married to the idea of people getting killed on track and off that you’re going to ignore improvements in safety as they become available?
Should you maybe reconsider what exactly excites you about racing that you find yourself arguing for less driver safety even though one of your heroes lost his life on track in an accident that would hopefully no longer lead to lasting injuries thanks to the advancements made over the past 23 years?
What kind of comment is that? He bought a ticket to do his job? When did I suggest that I celebrate people in the sport getting killed? Talk about silliness.
The general thrust of my outlook is there is safety and some times safety can be over specified. In this instance the halo is trying to solve problems that really don’t exist and in doing so does a poor job of it on every front. Does that in any way mean that I am welcoming or excited about the prospect of a driver getting killed? Ofcourse not.
The bottom line is we have a series of adults undertaking a risky vocation for fun and profit and whom surely able to judge for themselves their risk appetite as they do so. This does not require further mandate by the FIA to ensure that the drivers a wrapped in cotton wool to perform their activity. Take a look at the Winter Olympics and guys in Lycra shooting down a frozen a canyon with no protection, should that event be banned? Should an additional safety bubble be created by the IOC? Or should we just let adults undertake their activities as they see fit knowingly that something might go wrong?
As a former competitor in motocross for 16 years I did so inherently at my own risk knowing full well that I go have died at any moment, which I nearly did on one occasion. Did I feel the need to stop? Did I ask the FIM to intervene? No you just roll with the punches.
+1 – excellent points and very well made
I watch the first few laps, fast forward while watching the leaderboard, stopping only when it shows a significant position change, and then the last few laps. I watch Moto GP intently from start to finish. Moto riders still risk life and limb, unlike GP Marketing Racing
Absolutely.
Moto GP? Let the little chubby fellow near it and he’ll stuff it up….
+1 – my viewing habits have gravitated to something similar to your own
Well said!!! We admire the heroes for going to the limit (and sometimes beyond). If all danger is to removed from F1 then eventually it will be more dangerous for me to take the car to work, than it will be for a formula 1 driver to compete – will that make me a hero? No way …
My opinion of F1 has always been that it needs to wow the fans. To do that, they should build the cars to travel at a speed which limits the driver’s thinking speed. THEN mistakes will happen because the drivers can’t keep 100% focus for two hours. Fans get great racing, everybody’s happy.
THEN…having a bubble canopy and a safe driver shell would make sense so that driver’s aren’t killed but still pay the price for mistakes, be that getting overtaken or going off track.
Personally I think they need to drastically reduce the amount of potential aerodynamic grip, replace some of it with ground effect and use much harder tyre compounds. Make these things really tricky to drive on the edge and able to race in close proximity and the spectacle would be transformed.
I lay most problems with F1 at the door of the FIA who I do not consider to be fit for purpose. I believe tbat their road safety remit to be incompatible with governance high speed motor sport!
The FIA can only be classed as spineless when it comes to matters concerning F1.
1) They don’t govern, only mediate
2) They don’t take actions
3) They don’t make a stand
Why are they even an entity.
Another possible solution for the FIA is to get some new lawyers….
With a full canopy you might not be able to get rid of helmet full stop but I’d imagine you’d be able to go open face at least.
The cars would be massively safer if they could only go about 30km/h as well. We don’t do anything about restricting that. A ridiculous example of course but here’s one perhaps more realistic. Safety car starts are without a doubt less cause for injury and destruction than standing starts and there’s been plenty of death caused by these and yet we still soldier on with standing starts so the rule of thumb that if something safer exists and they don’t use it that they’re opening themselves up to all sorts of legal risk shouldn’t be that much of a deciding factor.
Unfortunately all the column space devoted to making such statements has probably caused the Halo to become a reality just as much as any Johnny Hotshot lawyer sitting in an office, so here we are with nobody happy and back to having ugly cars.
Is the helo over-engineered? It seems to me they only needed to make a bulletproof vest, but they’ve ended up with something that’ll stop a tank shell. Surely there’s need for it weigh as much as it does when we’ve got carbon fibre and other advance materials.
Your hope that we might see drivers prepared to go harder, for longer this season is going to fail at the first hurdle, because F1 continues to use Pirelli tyres. Tyres that are incapable to running for any length of time at peak performance. Tyres designed to create drama for the *show*. Dump the licorice for real rubber and your dream might arrive. Until that time, we’ll have to carry on watching races that are being run to a ‘delta’ on every lap.
Did you miss the 2017 season entirely?
@proesterchen – Are you claiming not to have heard any mention of ‘lap delta’ or ‘hammer time’ last year? Most drivers put in fast laps before changing tyres, which indicates they were capable of going faster, but hadn’t. I doesn’t take Einstein to work out why.
“I doesn’t take Einstein to work out why.”
And yet, you failed.
We had several races last year where the softest available compound was capable of going the entire race distance (if that were permitted) without significant degradation.
It’s just lazy not to at the very least update your criticism when the underlying facts change.
You raise an interesting point. My understanding was that the aeroscreen wasn’t as robust as the halo but (vision issues aside) would it have been ‘good enough’? Indycar certainly seem to think so..
IIRC the FIA found two problems with the aeroscreen in testing – it broke when a wheel was fired at it, and the driver’s helmet can potentially strike the rim of it in a big impact, suffering potentially catastrophic deceleration in the process.
The first issue could potentially be addressed, but I’m not sure about the second. You would need to make the screen huge, as tall and wide as the Halo. The aeroscreen might well be good enough for Indycar, but let’s be honest – Indycar’s safety record is horrendous compared to F1’s.
F1 teams are pretty smart, why not regulate a safety test a la monocoque and let the teams develop (buy/share) their own solution?
Why do F1 drivers use tear off visors? Because of grime/clag build up. Will they then have a tear off canopy visor?
And with a closed canopy cockpit, how about air conditioning? This is a hot weather sport, and the drivers currently loose significant body moisture and weight during a race.
Windscreen wipers and screen washers will be a must.
“I struggle to understand how an event like the Isle of Man TT can continue each year, killing people at a regular rate and providing fans with something to marvel at.”
Maybe instead of following the self-indulgent narcissistic world of F1 so devotedly, you should venture out to the IOM to watch the TT. Then perhaps you’d understand what most of us actually do marvel at….it isn’t the deaths that you gleefully refer to.
Callous and ill-thought comment.
You need to learn to be polite
Mike, be polite to JOE.
If you’re a regular to Joe’s blog you’d know he wouldn’t make such a reference “gleefully”. Perhaps the wording could have been better but the point he was making remains valid and is that the IOM TT inspires incredulality at the feats of the competitors and the risks they are prepared to take to life and limb.
In the end, whatever anyone else thinks (and I agree with a lot of your sentiments) the sport is in the hands of Liberty, the FIA and the teams (probably in that order) and whatever happens will be down to them and them alone. It’s obvious that most people, fans, whoever find the halo an abomination so that’s what leverage WE have! So be it, fans have a simple choice to lump it or leave it and time will tell who made the right choice.
current cars already looked like if they were mocked up from various irrelevant pieces, halo just nailed it. i’d rather look to introduce completely different (and elegant) design – there are some pretty aggressive, cool and menacing looking renderings of canopied future cars. let’s bring that future ASAP!!!
or back to future – hence Arrows A2 – even canopy wouldn’t harm it!
You can not be more correct.
Agree with you entirely Joe.
Putting 10Kg above the driver will make the cars even slower looking than just being 800Kg in total mass. It’s not bueno. Just like Lewis, I miss the light cars from the early 2000s but, safety marches on.
And look at Wehrlein’s Monaco flip up sideways this year. He could have easily been reiinjured. Also check Alonso’s hands from the Grosjean Spa start crash; very lucky his right hand wasn’t mangled. I like danger until something real bad happens.
+1
Motorsport fans have a long history of complaining about safety measures when nobody’s getting hurt, then getting very angry when somebody does.
Too much truth there Kenny…..
Joe, so glad you’ve tackled the elephant in the room. Too many are telling us that we will get used to it. As you say it’s not just how they look it’s how they drive into the ethos of the current sport.
I wonder whether BCE would have had the nous to outwit the Lawyers?
Sorry, current should have read entire…
Implement canopy and I’m out. That’s basically the same as the endurance sports cars, you do not need two series for the same.
endurance(WEC) is effectively dead – 2,5 cars in LMP1, one make cars and engines in LMP2 – what 2 series!
“Down force is the enemy of racing, reduce down force and the cars will not hit the wall so hard”.
Recommended reading:- “Rick Mears on cockpit protection for open wheel racecars”. if one read Rick Mears on the subject, one will know more on what one is really talking about.
As Motorsport fans, if you ever get a chance, read or watch any of the road racing films, documentaries or books from the last few years – they are simply mind-blowing. If you are lucky enough take a trip to the isle of man TT, the north west 200 or the Ulster grand Prix in Northern Ireland and watch the road racers hit over 200 mph on a public road – as you sit on a bank 3 feet away from them!!!! I watch F1 and think – I could do that, I watch WRC and think – I could have a go at that, I watch road racing and think- HOW DO THEY DO THAT?!
F1 is slowly dying as it moves towards pay TV unless they do something. I have no idea what they need to do but if I, after 36 years of watching it, won’t buy a subscription to SKY to watch it from 2019 who will? I work in a primary school and amongst the kids there is almost ZERO interest in the sport – it’s scary.
SAVE OUR SPORT JOE!!!
+1
Someone clever with photoshop….the worlds’ crying out for a mashup of….
a 2018 halo, a 2014 proboscis nose (Caterham or SFI ones were absolute belters), a 2009 tall skinny rear wing.
All wrapped in a nice Honda earth car livery….anything else I’ve missed from the modern era?
How about those vertical nose wings from the 2006 Sauber?
OK, reasons the IOM TT ‘gets away with it’:
* absolutely deranged competitors,
* whenever a competitor is killed, you can pretty much rely on friends and family to come out with the “he died doing what he loved doing” line rather than looking for the nearest lawyer in the Yellow Pages,
* fanatical support from the fans
* a lot of IOM businesses rely on the two weeks of boosted income to make it through the rest of the year,
* IOM government is fully supportive (because of the tax receipts),
* local legal system that is based upon, but not actually beholden to, the UK or European Health & Safety legislation, as the IOM is part of neither the UK nor the European Union, (not sure whether the ECJ covers IOM though),
* and probably the most important when it comes to it: relatively small business in global terms, so there’s not a lot of money sloshing around to be obtained in law suits.
There have been (last time I looked) an average of about 1.5 riders killed per year (there have been years with zero, and some with as many as 5 or 6! Last year was five). *Sometimes* they’ve taken spectators and/or marshals with them. But everyone, but everyone, but EVERYONE knows that it’s dangerous, and nobody takes part, or marshals, or spectates because somebody’s put a gun to their head.
Very valid points however, while not nearly at the same level of risk, MotoGP riders frequently ignore medical advice and will race with broken limbs. MotoGP is big business (behind F1, probably the biggest in motorsport). It appears Dorna and the biking fraternity realise that if law suits are thrown around, it will ruin what they hold so dear.
In the last few years I have become convinced that all this screwing around with safety and green, as well as many other smaller things is going to eventually lead to a new racing series. History shows us, this is the way things are killed off and new things crop up. Looking at it from the point of view of business, F1 is going the way of the horse drawn carriage, and then there was the car, ironic.
Its not just the halo, its so many things, the current engine alone is enough to kill this thing called F1. All of this is largely being done under the demands of the head of the FIA, I think his name is Jean Todt, I see him as the man who killed F1 and we have a ring side seat.
The golden age of Greece was killed off by endless compromises of their own law, the same happened to Rome, (yes its more complex) this seems to be in our DNA. At all times and at all places we are the eternal frog sitting in a frying pan as the heat gets turned up slowly, not noticing the destructive changes, or ignoring them, as in, doing nothing. Here it goes for F1. It often seems that at no point are any counter arguments allowed once the FIA has made a decision because democracy is such a drag.
I think the interesting question is, why F1, why has this recurring phenomena arrived at F1s door? I have always been of the opinion that the head of the FIA is a strange mixture of public interest and business interest. The top guy in the FIA flies around the world each year hitting all the hot spots and even some capitals of government. He seems to bring with him a magnificent circus which attracts the top dogs of governments and industry. A little hob nobbing here and there and suddenly your mouthing the political concerns of the group you travel in, not F1 interests but more along the lines of UN world political interests. And then your taking action against your own interests! Here comes Greece here comes Rome here comes the end.
The head of the FIA is all about pleasing that thin slice of folks he meets and has dinners with, they are as fickle as a 12 year old boy. Its worse, they represent elected officials who don’t always get reelected, and business men who don’t always keep their job, its a transitory existence which feeds the head of the head of the FIA. Garbage in garbage out.
My imagination tells me MR. FIA has his best epiphanies not in a room full of men’s voices but full of wives voices. Youngish and determined, with their older husband in one hand and a petition of political corrections in the other they take action. Mr. Todt wants so much to please these people, not so much the F1 fans, and then it all goes to crap.
You’ve nailed it exactly Blub with your last para….
Agree on the bravery side of racing Vs E racing Joe.
One of the fundamental reasons I still get a buzz out of F1 is knowing the drivers can do things with a car that I can’t. I can’t imagine the thrill of the fast complex at Silverstone, or Eau Rouge.
My favourite bits of kart racing were the fastest corners where you needed both skill and bravery to be fast, the absolute challenge of the clubhouse corner at Golspie kart track was what kept me going there, pitting your survival instinct against your desire to go faster. Every MSA kart track in Scotland has at least one quick corner where you will have a very big and painful accident if you get it wrong, and that will require a trip in an ambulance and a new chassis. Take that away and you lose some of the performance differentiators between drivers.
PS. The halo is a nonsense, and the screen should be introduced next year, it seems to have a better balance of risk vs the likelihood of something striking the driver, and looks way better.
Great article Joe and completely concur. Its the first time I can recall you acknowledging F1’s image of having competitors that are living life on the very edge is actually put in the shade by those who do that to a far greater degree on two wheels. While the IOM TT is the apex of this example, I am continually perplexed why F1 is has done nothing to readdress the state it finds itself in, in comparison to MotoGP.
The two-wheeled equivalent of F1 has competitors that will frequently disregard medical advice, racing with broken limbs, ribs and collarbones yet there is no suggestion that the threat of litigation would prevent this from re-occuring in the future. Temper this with situations such as Alonso’s a few years back when he ended up being replaced by Vandoorne for the Bahrain 2015 GP – it erodes the image of F1 competitors being the guys who put it all on the line (particularly when one sees what the MotoGP guys will do).
I know you’re very much focused on F1 these days, it is your bread and butter after all. However, should you ever find the time to witness a MotoGP race, I urge you to do so (I remember you took time out to take a look at Formula E when it was in Paris a couple years ago and the dates didn’t clash with F1).
This year you may find MotoGP’s race at Le Mans is nicely nestled between the weekends for the Spanish and French F1 GPs.. Give it a go, it may give you a fresh perspective of what ‘racing’ really ought to be like. Just a suggestion from someone who does appreciate all you do for F1 and your followers.
well, i think one reason for this being that the drivers r increasingly a bunch of rich brats, however talented they might be. F1 thinks itself to b on a high pedestal and brag about their own “high-tech” and “piece of complex engineering” and made themselves pretty aloof from the world, even road car industry i think.
I think the halo to be a necessary evil. It looks awful. But it’s not just F1 using it this year, F2 and Formula E already have it too. Unfortunately now that it’s ready there is simply no reasonable justification not to use it. The same people bemoaning it’s asthetics would be the very same people crying fowl if a fatality happened which could have been prevented.
The halo is a direct result of accidents like Surtees, Wilson and to a lesser extent Binachi. It’s not the first time that big changes have been forced through. Post Imola 1994 big changes were made to both the cars and tracks, many of them unpopular because of the perceived damage to the purity and rawness of the sport.
Things happen and times change, nothing lasts for ever (not even Rome, as someone else aluded to).
The fact is, that at the moment the only new device ready to race is the halo. Would I prefer the Indy Areoscreen? Of course I would! It’s positively elegant compared to the Halo. But it’s not ready.
But hopefully it will be soon. And when it is I see no reason why F1 shouldn’t adopt it. Afterall, F1 adopted HANS and safer barriers, both of which were developed stateside.
I see a lot of the negativity as symptomatic of modern social media. It’s almost cool to be derogative in any way you can and people compete to have the wittiest put downs on Facebook. Some of it justified, but much of it needlessly pithy. It’s a shame that such a high proportion of social media is more interested in looking like six year old child who can let their whole day be ruined by having the wrong coloured cup for tea-time than mature race fans who love the sport for the racing.
Care to share Jim exactly how the halo would have helped Justin Wilson?
It might have done
On the few occasions when a canopy has been used in single seat racing. ( the Protos f2 car and an f1 Brabham in practice for the, I think, 1967 Italian GP) both ran with a narrow horizontal slot cut in the Perspex so that the driver had a clear view in all conditions.
I think if the racing was great and the drivers were allowed to race and not being micro managed from the pit wall we wouldn’t care so much about the halo being introduced – The response to Halo should have been – ” Wow thats ugly but my hero’s need it because of the speed and danger…..”
But unfortunately we don’t see the need for it – because over running into car park or being told to slow down as it’s not your strategy, your tyres/brakes are too hot….etc.etc
Cut the cord to pits, improve the tyres and give free choice, remove tarmac edges to tracks, free up the engine rules and undercar areo….we might not mind the Halo then…
I think they look a bit better now the cars have been built to incorporate them, but at the end of the day doing nothing wasn’t really an option and the aeroscreen failed the FIA’s tests – the rim of the screen provides a potential secondary collision with the driver’s head that the halo does not, apparently.
That, to me, sounds like a showstopper as far as the aeroscreen is concerned, but I’ll hope they find some way around it. In the meantime, whenever F1 has turned up ugly cars they always seem to end up looking normal after a couple of races. Everyone hated the 2009-2016 cars with their huge front wings and tall, skinny rear wings (which actually helped cars run closer to each other, as was demonstrated last year). They did look ungainly initially, but we soon adjusted. Though that was helped be the removal of all the messy-looking appendages F1 cars had sprouted, so the lines underneath were clear to see once more.
Agree completely, Joe. Make racing sterile at your own peril FIA.
Good comment Joe!
I was talking to Charlie W in Sepang last year and said “fans don’t want it, teams and drivers don’t want it, F1 is open wheel, open cockpit racing. The drivers know the risk and get paid heaps to do this” he said yes but if there is a safety device that saves a driver and FIA don’t implement it they will be liable- simple as that. They had no choice really. Yet like you say Joe TT racing so dangerous and Moto GP aren’t getting training wheels this year..
“If one listens to lawyers then one is told that if one knows that something related to safety could be better and something goes wrong, the fact that one knew there was a better option but did nothing about it, is deemed to be negligence.”
By this rationale the safest thing would be to leave the cars on the grid and toss coins, or something, to determine the winner.
Yeah, am confused by this logic when it comes to something that is inherently deemed ‘dangerous’. Surely, the safest approach would be to have it all running in a virtual environment…which kind of defeats the point.. Take it cricket or rugby for example – head injuries are common in both however there’s no call to wear full face crash helmets or American Football style padding/armour etc..
Aaaaargh the new RSS feed is not full content, just stubs, which sucks compared to the old setup. I guess your hosts won’t want to change this, which commercially I can understand, but aaaaargh nonetheless.
The genie is out of the bottle with this cockpit head protection. I know the halo has been tested extensively for all possible collision scenarios, testing can’t account for real life. I can envisage the day a drive will end up trapped by the halo unable to escape. Only then may we see the back of it.
To my great surprise, having initially felt massively gloomy when it was agreed, I am quite impressed by the efforts of a number of the teams’ designers to minimise the visual impact, particularly given that they’ll be able to do even more with a longer lead-in on the next generation. I’ll reserve judgement till we’ve seen them all flying.
can anyone confirm if a driver can exit between the side gap of the halo when the car is upturned? im wondering what happens when the car is ditched upside down in a sandtrap for example?
In general, there will be more space available for driver egress with the Halo because it provides a higher support point for the car than the front of the chassis, on which it would have previously rested.
It remains standard operating procedure for the driver to remain in the car until it has been turned right-side-up, though.
The halo is wonderfully symbolic of how broken F1 management is.
That this could be the solution that is arrived at, speaks volumes.
I LOVE that Indy has come up with a more attractive device, that also does a better job, as it’s surely embarrassing for anyone involved in sticking that ridiculous hoop on a racing car.
How would anyone know if Indycar’s solution does a good job, much less a better one than the Halo? So far, they haven’t shared any information on the loads it’s designed to take with the public, there has been one singular test, and even the biggest optimists don’t see it implemented till the tail end of their season.