F1 to introduce 'halo' device

[24lemons]

Eric Mc said:

I think what the cars look like is one of the appeals of the activity. I certainly fell in love with F1 cars partly because of the sheer beauty of cars like the Lotus 25 or the Shark Nose Ferrari.

I wonder if the aesthetics of future cars will be more likely to draw or repel?

And by the same token many will argue that the sound is as important to the appeal of the sport as anything else, yet there are those who will try to tell you that the sport is no worse off for the lack of noise.

As far as looks go, there have been many visually offensive designs over the years, tower wings, cock noses, and even the awkward proportions brought in for 2009. The halo isn't the ugliest appendage I've seen on an f1 car, not by a long way.

The bottom line for me is that not an insignificant number of drivers have been injured or killed due to head injuries and it it right and responsible to try and reduce those where possible.

[jbudgie]

Eric Mc said:

The road to turning F1 cars into dramatically unpleasant looking vehicles progresses apace. Watch the cars turn into pig ugly monstrosities, and watch the fans continue to drift away.

Spot on Eric, as you often are ( not always though !!)

This is an ill thought out idea to assuage public opinion.

Certainly not necessary with strength of the protection on the cars these day.

[BarbaricAvatar]

Eric Mc said:

PW said:

Eric Mc said:

watch the fans continue to drift away.

Would be great if all the "fans" who hate F1 and do nothing but complain about how every single thing that happens in the sport ruins it would actually drift away, instead of making these empty promises.

I certainly don't hate F1. I am just filled with despair at the way it is gradually being destroyed by those tasked with looking after it.

Anyway, it's not really a prediction. It's more a state of fact.


I think what the cars look like is one of the appeals of the activity. I certainly fell in love with F1 cars partly because of the sheer beauty of cars like the Lotus 25 or the Shark Nose Ferrari.

I wonder if the aesthetics of future cars will be more likely to draw or repel?

Except you're still here, even though a season ago the cars looked like this:



The "I'm going to stop watching when the cars look stupid" argument doesn't work because they looked stupid in 2014.

Realistically it'll get on my tits if the wussies win and a halo/canopy is introduced, but i'll probably keep watching. I'll just have no respect for the drivers anymore.

Edited by BarbaricAvatar on Saturday 6th February 18:38

[jbudgie]

Yes, I will always keep watching. But every season seems to be less 'exciting' than the preceding one.

[sirtyro]

I've already moved over to WEC. Loved the open cockpits of the R8 LMP1 and the current Gibson LMP2's. They are now moving towards cockpits and still look really good. I think F1 should stay away from this and just be what they are now. You can't remove the total danger from F1, it's great to see all the improvements from Jackie Stewart or even Senna's time but this is a step to far.

[poppopbangbang]

Lets not forget in 2014 this happened:



Which if it was 20mm lower would have been fatal.

This is an ongoing issue and has been for years. There are still situations where tethers will not retain the wheel and after a considerable amount of testing and tenders from various teams and organisations the Halo looks to be the best option from a protection/extraction/minimal impact on performance and aero point of view.

If it offends people that much that they decide to quit watching F1 and this decline leads to the eventual death of the sport then so be it. Unfortunately sometimes the viewing public are unrealistic in their expectations of what the teams should/shouldn't do and this is one of those cases. To expect the teams not to mitigate the risk of a wheel off incident where it is possible to do so without any real impact on the sport is crazy...... plus it gives a few options for tuning airflow to the hoop inlet and down the engine cover;)

[Eric Mc]

poppopbangbang said:

Lets not forget in 2014 this happened:



Which if it was 20mm lower would have been fatal.


If it offends people that much that they decide to quit watching F1 and this decline leads to the eventual death of the sport then so be it.

So you would prefer no F1 to an F1 with an element of danger?

What a dire world we will end up living in of those who are prepared to take risk have that choice removed from them.

And those who admire and applaud those who are prepared to take such risks will be left with no one to admire and applaud.

Hopefully, I won't be around when this dull and predictable world eventually comes to pass.

[The Moose]

poppopbangbang said:

Which if it was 20mm lower would have been fatal.

If my auntie had a cock, she'd have been my uncle...

[poppopbangbang]

Eric Mc said:

So you would prefer no F1 to an F1 with an element of danger?

What a dire world we will end up living in of those who are prepared to take risk have that choice removed from them.

And those who admire and applaud those who are prepared to take such risks will be left with no one to admire and applaud.

Hopefully, I won't be around when this dull and predictable world eventually comes to pass.

This isn't about an element of danger. This is about what is an acceptable risk and what can be mitigated against in a straight forward, easy way without impacting the basic elements of the sport. The sport is bloody dangerous for everyone in it from mechanics, to rig engineers at the factory to the guys in the cars and there is nothing you can do to change that, the lack of deaths in and around F1 are a testament to the skill and ability of those involved in it - that is an inarguable point.

I owe F1 everything I have as without it I would not be where I am today, with the things I have and the people around me that I have. F1 and high level motorsport have quite honestly made me the person I am today and I am immensely thankful to it for that.... but that doesn't change the fact that in July 2009 I along with many others questioned our continued involvement in the sport. We did it again in 2012 and again in 2014 and again when that event reached the conclusion we knew it was going to in July last year. For those two later events the sport, the industry around it and those involved in it made changes to mitigate the risk with the aim of those events never happening again. It has taken until now for a viable solution to wheel offs to be developed, validated and put in a state that it can be implemented. The only reason not to do it would be if there was a way to vastly reduce the chances of a wheel off but that is simply not possible at this point in time.

There are few people at the sharp end of motorsport that don't have scars to show for it, pretty much all of us have broken bones, burnt or developed life long issues from it but that doesn't change our love for it or our commitment to it but to expect those directly involved in it to fail to ensure the best chance of survival in all situations for our colleagues, our friends, so you can admire and applaud from the grandstands or from behind a television leaves a bad taste sufficent that if this were blocked on the grounds of "it doesn't look cool enough" or "it's not dangerous enough now" many of us would call time on this part of our careers because we do not want to go through it again for the same, avoidable, reason.

The bottom line is there is overwhelming support for this across drivers, team, management and essentially everyone involve with getting these cars from idea to circuit. It will happen, ideally for the 17 season and it will be a permanent fixture on the cars from that point.

I'll bow out of this thread now as I have nothing more to add and it's no doubt quite clear I have an emotional and professional interest in this but I hope this has given you some sort of insight into why there is such support for this within the sport.

[Eric Mc]

poppopbangbang said:

This isn't about an element of danger. This is about what is an acceptable risk and what can be mitigated against in a straight forward, easy way without impacting the basic elements of the sport. The sport is bloody dangerous for everyone in it from mechanics, to rig engineers at the factory to the guys in the cars and there is nothing you can do to change that, the lack of deaths in and around F1 are a testament to the skill and ability of those involved in it - that is an inarguable point.

I owe F1 everything I have as without it I would not be where I am today, with the things I have and the people around me that I have. F1 and high level motorsport have quite honestly made me the person I am today and I am immensely thankful to it for that.... but that doesn't change the fact that in July 2009 I along with many others questioned our continued involvement in the sport. We did it again in 2012 and again in 2014 and again when that event reached the conclusion we knew it was going to in July last year. For those two later events the sport, the industry around it and those involved in it made changes to mitigate the risk with the aim of those events never happening again. It has taken until now for a viable solution to wheel offs to be developed, validated and put in a state that it can be implemented. The only reason not to do it would be if there was a way to vastly reduce the chances of a wheel off but that is simply not possible at this point in time.

There are few people at the sharp end of motorsport that don't have scars to show for it, pretty much all of us have broken bones, burnt or developed life long issues from it but that doesn't change our love for it or our commitment to it but to expect those directly involved in it to fail to ensure the best chance of survival in all situations for our colleagues, our friends, so you can admire and applaud from the grandstands or from behind a television leaves a bad taste sufficent that if this were blocked on the grounds of "it doesn't look cool enough" or "it's not dangerous enough now" many of us would call time on this part of our careers because we do not want to go through it again for the same, avoidable, reason.

The bottom line is there is overwhelming support for this across drivers, team, management and essentially everyone involve with getting these cars from idea to circuit. It will happen, ideally for the 17 season and it will be a permanent fixture on the cars from that point.

I'll bow out of this thread now as I have nothing more to add and it's no doubt quite clear I have an emotional and professional interest in this but I hope this has given you some sort of insight into why there is such support for this within the sport.

Good for you all. You are the participants and are entitled to make whatever changes you want.

However, don't expect that everyone who has been a fan for years will want to watch the amended product though.

Declining interest in the the product indicates that something is not working.

[Eric Mc]

PW said:

Eric Mc said:

What a dire world we will end up living in of those who are prepared to take risk have that choice removed from them.

What a dire world we will end up living in if those who are prepared to take risk have the choice of deciding what that risk is taken away from them, and instead have some arbitrary risk imposed on them by some guy on the internet.

It really is something when people care more about the cars being pretty than the drivers being alive.

As I have said to another post. Those who participate in an activity are entitled to make whatever changes they want to make that activity safer for them.

Those who WATCH that activity are entitled to have a reduced level of interest in that activity if they don't find it as appealing as they once did. We all know that there is declining interest in F1 and motor sport right across the board. When the watching numbers drop to below certain levels motor sport might be then have become absolutely 100% risk free - because there won't be any.

[Durzel]

So long as the drivers are happy with it, then it should be implemented. The idea that drivers lives should be weighted against aesthetics or "driver visibility to the crowd" is unconscionable.

Drivers take risks and I'm sure for many of them this risk-taking is the juice (as per Michael Mann's film "Heat"), but I doubt freak life-changing (or ending) accidents is what they're thinking about when they say this.

[MitchmachineUAE]

I'm totally against the Halo device, looks ugly and I doubt it would be robust enough to protect the driver from potential major head trauma caused by debris off the track. As others have mentioned it appears to be a design by committee situation resulting in a poor compromise for fans and driver alike.

Check out the Red Bull X2010 which Adrian Newey Designed for Gran Turismo 5. He has the right idea, a smarter looking F1 car prototype complete with covered cockpit for the driver. Looks nice and in theory would go like off a shovel and potentially a lot safer.

Edited by MitchmachineUAE on Sunday 7th February 09:41

[24lemons]

I don't understand the resistance to improving the survivability of the cars. Since the carnage of the 60's and 70's efforts have been made to allow drivers to survive accidents. There are dozens of drivers alive today as a result of those efforts and I'd like to know if anyone genuinely feels that their Sunday afternoons would have been more enjoyable had a few more of them not made it.

That may be a little blunt but that's what we are talking about here.

I couldn't give a stuff if it changes the look of the cars. They are so far removed from what they used to be anyway it doesn't matter. Watching a car been driven on the edge of its capabilities is what's compelling for me

[Evanivitch]

stemll said:

If it's removable then surely that would weaken it too much

Like a helmet or a seat belt...

[anonymous-user]

Eric Mc said:

PW said:

Eric Mc said:

What a dire world we will end up living in of those who are prepared to take risk have that choice removed from them.

What a dire world we will end up living in if those who are prepared to take risk have the choice of deciding what that risk is taken away from them, and instead have some arbitrary risk imposed on them by some guy on the internet.

It really is something when people care more about the cars being pretty than the drivers being alive.

As I have said to another post. Those who participate in an activity are entitled to make whatever changes they want to make that activity safer for them.

Those who WATCH that activity are entitled to have a reduced level of interest in that activity if they don't find it as appealing as they once did. We all know that there is declining interest in F1 and motor sport right across the board. When the watching numbers drop to below certain levels motor sport might be then have become absolutely 100% risk free - because there won't be any.

I'm not aware of any evidence that the falling viewing numbers, if they are falling, is related to either the appearance of the cars or the level of risk involved.

Do you have any, Eric?

[Eric Mc]

Does anybody have any evidence for ANY reason why viewing figures are falling? All we know is they are.

It is most likely a combination of all sorts of factors. I think the aesthetics of cars is an important reason as to why we like them in the first place. So - I'm sure it's a factor - but only one of many.

[anonymous-user]

Eric Mc said:

Does anybody have any evidence for ANY reason why viewing figures are falling? All we know is they are.

It is most likely a combination of all sorts of factors. I think the aesthetics of cars is an important reason as to why we like them in the first place. So - I'm sure it's a factor - but only one of many.

I thought, and I am pretty sure it was shown in a fZn survey a little while ago, that the lack of real racing and the over dependence on tyre management was the biggest turn off. That and of course the poor wind of the new engines.

It's just that your comments are the first I've ever heard about reduced risk and appearance being at all significant.

[Eric Mc]

Perhaps you might want to read people like Nigel Roebuck then because he has expressed similar thoughts to me. Indeed, it's partially reading and listening to him over the years that I have come to think along these lines.

[Mojocvh]

"There are few people at the sharp end of motorsport that don't have scars to show for it, pretty much all of us have broken bones, burnt or developed life long issues from it"

quite telling that.