Would the Halo have prevented historic F1 driver fatalities?

[Stealthracer]

That's the title of this interesting video from Peter Brook:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrUjRbhkkQ0

Would really like to see a follow up video, showing how many drivers lives have been saved by the halo since its introduction.

[anonymous-user]

It’s a stupid argument. The halo is an evolution of modern open wheel race car design. You can’t just stick a halo on a Lotus 49 in 1967 for example, otherwise all you are doing is sticking a roll cage on it. In an era when GT/Touring cars raced without cages too, who was going to cage in the driver of an F1 car?




As an example where a car has the potential improve safety, the opportunity is taken.

Here is how Caterhams raced in 1993



vs the current day



But as I said, you can’t claim bolting a roll cage or a halo onto every historic open wheel/single seater would save lives. It goes without saying though that belts and a cage probably would have saved lives but they just weren’t an option

[Eric Mc]

You can see what some drivers do today when racing historics.

This is an early 1960s Formula Junior car which has been retro-fitted with a tall roll-over bar



In period, the roll-over bars were pretty pathetic -

[PhilAsia]

pablo said:

Lovely! One of the rawest forms of racing.

Made an enquiry at Caterham in 2016 to import into Philippines...Hahahaha - 100%+$$$$$$$, impossibly convoluted red tape and the possibility/probability of the crusher if not done right ffs!!

[HustleRussell]

Haven't watched the video.

There isn't a single car which has existed prior to halo which would have been able to manage halo impact loads into the chassis. Halo is an integral part of the safety cell design, and of the overall safety philosophy.

I don't really see the value in speculating about what 'could've' happened in historic fatal incidents 'if' they'd had halo. If they'd had halo, they would've bad much stronger chassis which has passed rigorous crash tests, much higher chassis sides, rollover bars etc etc...

[entropy]

Upon the recent death of Tony Brooks I read one obituary recounting an accident whereby being flung out of his car actually saved his life else he would have been crushed. This is why many contemporary drivers were against seat belts at the time.

[zetec]

Tom Pryce? If there was a Halo on his car he may have survived. The marshall would still have perished though

[davidd]

Maybe the title should have been along the lines of..

Which historic motorsport fatalities would have been prevented if the driver had been in a modern era car. Might as well say track safety, marshalls etc as well.

I would expect there would be a lot more survivors.

[Ian974]

Even the halo while having proven itself very worthwhile isn't the answer to all problems, Grosjean's crash could very easily have had a much worse outcome even with it fitted.
At least all the arguing about how it would ruin the look of the cars disappeared pretty quickly once they were running them.
Edit on this topic: I did notice even a number of the old grand Prix cars racing at the Monaco historic the other weekend have had fairly prominent roll bars added. While again a worthwhile addition, it's one that's gets the attention as you'd assume having these things "original" is fairly high up on the list of priorities for owners

Edited by Ian974 on Wednesday 25th May 21:31

[Stealthracer]

Ian974 said:

At least all the arguing about how it would ruin the look of the cars disappeared pretty quickly once people realised there was no way a modern F1 car could be made any uglier..

FTFY

[Eric Mc]

The original halo had a very "tacked on" look to them and they did look ugly. The current halo is more integrated and blends into the overall look of the car much better.

As has been mentioned earlier, adding a halo type device to a pre-2020ish car would only offer a marginal improvement in safety as the overall structure of the chassis would not have been built to absorb the impact forces delivered by the halo in an accident.

There was an interesting race series launched in the mid 1990s called "Formula Classic". The cars were all based on a typical mid 1950s formula racing car - with a front mounted engined - but with mid 1990s safety features. I think they looked quite cool but the series was a failure.

[Gary29]

pablo said:

IHere is how Caterhams raced in 1993

I never realised just how serious he was about getting home for Christmas, bravo!

[thiscocks]

Eric Mc said:

You can see what some drivers do today when racing historics.

This is an early 1960s Formula Junior car which has been retro-fitted with a tall roll-over bar



In period, the roll-over bars were pretty pathetic -

The roll hoops on those era cars were for the engine, not driver. All the historic single seaters retro fitted with tall driver roll hops make the cars look terrible.

[HustleRussell]

thiscocks said:

All the historic single seaters retro fitted with tall driver roll hops make the cars look terrible.

I assure you it doesn't make them any less fun to race

[Eric Mc]

HustleRussell said:

thiscocks said:

All the historic single seaters retro fitted with tall driver roll hops make the cars look terrible.

I assure you it doesn't make them any less fun to race

Agreed - I don't have too much of an issue with them. If I was racing in an old single seater, I'd be more relaxed with a roll bar that might protect my head.

[TheDeuce]

Ian974 said:

Even the halo while having proven itself very worthwhile isn't the answer to all problems, Grosjean's crash could very easily have had a much worse outcome even with it fitted.
At least all the arguing about how it would ruin the look of the cars disappeared pretty quickly once they were running them.
Edit on this topic: I did notice even a number of the old grand Prix cars racing at the Monaco historic the other weekend have had fairly prominent roll bars added. While again a worthwhile addition, it's one that's gets the attention as you'd assume having these things "original" is fairly high up on the list of priorities for owners

Edited by Ian974 on Wednesday 25th May 21:31

I agree with the addition of better roll bars for historic cars, because it genuinely increases safety.

But a halo fitted to cars when a chief danger was burning alive would have been terrible. Imagine poor Niki's fate, I doubt he could have been extracted in time from a burning car - he had very little time as the nomex and helmets weren't as good then either.

Grosjean is an obvious example of the halo making life tricky, but his fire protection did buy him the time needed to extract and a car failing like that these days is extremely unlikely. And anyway, without the halo I expect he'd have been decapitated as he passed through the armco anyway.

All in all, the halo only makes sense in the era it was introduced.

[thiscocks]

^ v true

[entropy]

TheDeuce said:

But a halo fitted to cars when a chief danger was burning alive would have been terrible. Imagine poor Niki's fate, I doubt he could have been extracted in time from a burning car - he had very little time as the nomex and helmets weren't as good then either.

This was a time when marshalls were next to useless because they were never trained to deal with accidents. Such accidents were left to the bravery of passing drivers to perform heroic deeds to save their peers. If the halo was used then, then it would have been only the drivers who would have known how to extricate a driver in peril such as unbuckling such seatbelts - which is what happened with Lauda as it was Arturo Merzario who dived in to undo the belts.

[LukeBrown66]

It would have helped in certain scenarios of course, but it would also have not been as sturdy as the ones now. The one I always think of is poor Henry Surtees, that incident was so ridiculously impossible to repeat.

But danger is all part of it, in f1 you lose a Bianchi and some others get dangerously injured like Massa etc, in rallying you lost Toivonen, Bettega and numerous incidents that was largely linked to crazy long stages, massively hard cars on tricky roads and mainly spectator safety.

I can recall the stuff around Mercedes at Le Mans in 99, I doubt the real stuff ever gets out as it was literally so dangerous that car, yet they were trying to still race it.

I still do not like the look of the Halo, but I do not think it can be underestimated how much it has helped, much like the HANS device that has now filtered down into pretty much any motorsport you see.

[moffspeed]

Henry Surtees and Justin Wilson would probably still be with us courtesy of a halo but it is all hypothesis

Tim Birkin leant down to pick up a cigarette lighter (!) during a pit stop at the 1933 Tripoli Grand Prix. He burnt his arm on his car’s open exhaust and many days later died of septicaemia. A basic fireproof suit or a dose or two of penicillin would have done the job…

Just a reminder also. There has always been an awareness that single seater drivers are vulnerable to attack from the front. Here we have a Lola T332 at mid Ohio in 1976. An early “halo” but sadly one that features a design that probably wouldn’t have saved Tom Pryce in his hideous accident at Kyalami in ‘77.

Edited by moffspeed on Friday 27th May 22:50