planetf1.com

Those pictures are seriously scary and had me searching youtube for 2012 Spa.

Personally, I didn't find them too bad looking when the cars were revealed this year, certainly better than I had expected. But however one feels on the aesthetics, incidents and pictures like this show the FIA were right to get it on the cars now.

Have fun

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“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.”
― Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Some silly comments on the the JA story and I'm sure some, sadly, will follow here.

Those self-same people would be the ones sending "thoughts and prayers" to the drivers family had something horrific happened in the absence of a Halo device.

From what I can tell from the pictures in the linked article it's not definitive how much the Halo helped, but I'm willing to take the word of man who was affected that it made the difference.

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Can't say it's changed my mind. I never denied it would make racing safer.

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So the question I ask is this.

Hypothetically, lets say Makino's car survived the impact with nothing more than a damaged Halo & a few scratches to the body work and was able to carry on racing as normal.

Would Makino have been shown the black & orange flag, been forced to come into the pits and retire a perfectly drivable car due to the damaged Halo?

I'd hope the answer would be that anytime there's an impact involving the halo being struck the car would at the minimum be pitted and probably retired.

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Races since last non RB, Merc, Ferrari winner - 118 & counting.

Non RB, Merc, Ferrari podiums won in Hybrid era - 300 spots available, 23 won

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That will be last thing on anyone's mind. But yes, if you have contact on your halo and have visible damage at the joint where it interfaces with the chassis or if the halo frame is bent, immediately bring the car to pits. I dont think anyone would complain after just having their life saved by that piece of hardware.

Yeah, it was always going to be hypothetical question. Given the strength of the impact that will be needed to damage halo, the rest of the car would be in pretty bad shape.

Well what's the strength of the impact needed to damage the Halo sufficiently to warrant retiring the car?

Are these specified somewhere and if so how are they measured? Are there impact sensors on the Halo or is it purely via visual inspection? What if there's an impact that doesn't deform the Halo but may have been of sufficient strength to possibly cause a minor fracture in the structure?

In my hypothetical world we'd know the spring flew out of the back of the car but luckily it ricocheted off the Halo away from the driver. Now, hypothetically, the Halo looks ok visually and the driver is saying everything's fine so is this car allowed to carry on or does it need to be retired from the race?

You can mock my question & say it's as hypothetical as Alonso's dinosaur but I bet you'd have said the same about Massa's accident in Hungary, or Surtees's accident at Brands or Wilsons accident, or dozens of other accidents before they actually happened but dealing with hypothetical scenarios is how we remove or mitigate the risk of injury when a scenario moves from the hypothetical to the factual.

There are different levels of impact and different levels of damage. It's simplistic to think its a case of either the Halo being perfectly fine or trashed and I think it's also simplistic to think that a driver would happily retire his car if the Halo had been struck by something. Think Derek Warwick, Monza 1990 or Martin Brundle, Australia 1996. Two monumental accidents that could so easily have ended tragically but what was the first thing they did when they go out of the car? They ran back to the pits to get in the spare car and do it all again.

No I don't think anyone would complain about the Halo saving their life but i'd expect the driver to not be too happy about having to retire a perfectly normal working car because the Halo may have been damaged in an incident.

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Races since last non RB, Merc, Ferrari winner - 118 & counting.

Non RB, Merc, Ferrari podiums won in Hybrid era - 300 spots available, 23 won

2017 WCC CPTTC - Jalopy Racing (Herb & Me)

This is for me the best proof that the Halo is a good addon.

I couldn't care less how the car looks.

Everyone is attracted by the danger of the sport, and yes it's exciting ....... especially if you are sitting in your underwear on your couch.

Stick anything on the car that would prevent injury to a driver, for all I care. I don't want anyone to get hurt because of "my personal taste" in car design.

Debating the opportunity of the HALO is just another one of those pub talks. It only exists because some idiots have nothing better to do with their life.

Agreed in full. When was the last time we saw a car continue racing, that was struck by another that was airborne? When one can provide an example, then this conservation becomes valid.

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I don't think it has ever been denied that halo would make situations like this safer. The debate was always about other situations where the halo could make things worse.

We would have to see a situation where a wrecked car is upside down and on fire to make a proper judgement. Also a situation where a driver is trapped in a car with spinal injuries and the extra maneuvering to get them around the halo (especially in an Alonso in Melbourne scenario) leaves them permanently paralysed.

Hopefully no such incidents occur and halo remains a positive influence on safety.

As for this particular photo, whilst the wheel hit the halo I'm inclined to think the side protection would have kept the car away from his head had it not been there.

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While I don't have the technical know how to contradict you, what intrigued me last year in Baku, was just how soft the side protection looked in Hamiltons hands when he was trying to put it back into place.

So yes, I do agree the side protection is there to protect, but it always seems those freak accidents somehow tend to go around them. Hence the name, freak accidents, I guess.

Well yeah, the non freak ones deflect off them which they are supposed to do

The inside facing the driver is soft the outside is hard.

- a closed cockpit would increase safety
- banning free wheels would increase safety,
- and, above all, massively reducing speed would increase safety.

So, here is your program for the non-idiots ...

There's a video out there where the FIA engineers put someone in a mockup tub with a Halo on it and flipped it over and he was able to get out just fine. It probably wasn't any more difficult than Alonso being up against the barrier in Oz.

If there's a concern about spinal injuries the seat is designed to get the driver out while still strapped into in it whether there's a Halo on the car or not.

Go to about 18:20 in this video to see the discussion of egress and the demonstration I talked about above.
https://youtu.be/AYkGjUHstKY

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Have seen drivers meatballed (American lingo for black and orange flag) for problems with roll bar, seat belt, helmet visor, window netting (closed cockpit cars), and blown fire bottles. So yeah, I could see getting the meatball flag for a noticeably damaged halo.

From the pics I don't see any noticeable damage on Makino's halo other than scratched paint and deposited rubber. I am guessing that FIA have taken possession of Makino's halo for testing after the incident. Will probably do Xray, ultrasound, and maybe even destructive testing on the surviving part.

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I know for what I stand, and have watched F1 for enough years to see major crashes and wonder if he will come out alive.

It just doesn't make sense. If one is thrilled by danger and wants excitement, ask Anthony Joshua to punch you.

Again, the opinion of those sitting on the couch SHOULD NOT matter, especially when it comes to safety.

I don't think that last line is fair.

There are plenty of things that one could do that would make the cars safer, which have been outlined above. Would discussing open wheels also be a conversation only for idiots?

People question the halo because its safety credentials are debatable, in that it is only useful in very specific circumstances. It's here now, which kinda makes the debate moot, but I don't think it's right to criticize people for arguing against it. F1, and to a extent all motor sports, is always going to make some compromises where safety is concerned, otherwise a driver would never turn a wheel.

It's worth pointing out that several drivers have spoken out against the halo, so it's not just couch potatos throwing their weight around, either

What about the drivers ? Many of them were against the halo?

it looks the halo did some good in that accident, how much, i can't really say.

it has been pointed out about a million times that many drivers were against seat belts and the hans device. none of them would race without either device today

The Halo is starting to grow on me, I just wish they could maybe decrease its thickness by maybe 50% to reduce its visual impact and allow a better view of the driver.

Hamilton changed his mind as he has every right too. Was he an idiot when he was opposed to it though? Is Hulkenberg?

So, please be consistent and argue in favour of slowing down the cars massively!

If halo was responsible for saving life in this accident, then can anyone remind me when the last fatal accident happened, during which driver was killed after being struck in their head/body by competitor's tyre/wings/floor, well, car in general?

Because I've watched, most of them live, so many accidents, when cars climbed on top of each other, from all different angles and nothing bad ever happened. We are not talking about bouncing tyre (or in Wilson's case, nosecone with ballast mounted inside to cure innate understeer of DW12), which is basically 50-50 situation, pure luck, you hit it - you die, you miss it - good for you. We're talking about dozens of accidents, solid database of all different scenarios with only one outcome - positive.

Martin Brundle was actually hit in the head by Jos Verstappen's tyre during infamous crash at Interlagos in 1994:



Without HANS, without high cockpit protection sides, completely exposed:

[Unsourced image removed]

Was he dead? No. Was he lucky? Yes, very, but it still shows even in the worst case, with less safer cars and helmets, such accident can be survivable with no lasting negative effect.


Fast forward to 2018 and when you see any kind of accident, it's safety this, safety that, more safety. I'm very glad I've tasted racing when it was safe enough, but still a little bit risky and when these guys were actually being challenged in proper wet conditions. Today it's a sad parody of what it used to be and I wouldn't be surprised if in the next 10 or 20 years all races will be held on circuits without any gravel or grass, only in dry conditions, with drivers remotely controlling their cars sitting in the pitlane. Safety first, right?

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You didn't. Read the post I was replying to initialy to understand the context of my the reply and it should make sense.

I think no one is making another one an idiot here.

It s just some of us feel it s not worth for our own delight to see drivers facing unnecessary risks.

Brake failure and crashing heavily because of it is unfortunatelly a risk a driver has to take when racing
.

Bouncing wheels or other flying objects hitting you in the head, isn t.

But it is only my opinion , it doesn t mean i am right.

Limiting to speed to say 60MPH would make things a lot safer. Would you support that? If not then you have a line where you consider things "safe enough" just like me. Your line may fall in a different place but it's still there.

Race: (noun) a competition in which people run, ride, drive, etc. against each other in order to see who is the fastest

Asking for safer cars is not the same as asking for change the racing and for that I don't see inconsistency here.

I don't see how the halo affects the definition of racing the way speed does.

I don't think asking for safer cars without asking for then to be slower is something inconsistent.
Not only for F1 cars but for any car.

So, get rid of open wheels then and introduce fully closed cockpits?

... And? How does the existence of a line where things are 'safe enough' invalidate the opinion that safety is worth striving for?

You're using a classic junk debating tactic - assigning your opponent some extreme, absurd version of their position and then mocking them for it. Not a good way to debate. If you want to actually engage in the conversation, try engaging the actual conversation instead of that straw man. Nobody is advocating limiting the whole race to pit speeds, and it's insulting to imply that there's any equivalence between something designed to protect against head hits in an open cockpit car and a cessation of racing at all. Is it not racing if people can't still be hit in the head with a wheel? Because that's what you seem to be implying with this equivalence.

I'm sure everyone has a line where they think the racing is safe enough. For me, it's when nobody dies as long as all the safety provisions and rules are followed. I think we're just about there, and I honestly think the halo is unnecessary.

Where we appear to fundamentally disagree is that you seem to regard danger - the present risk of losing one's life, specifically - as necessary for racing. I disagree wholeheartedly. The risk of a mistake ending your race is absolutely necessary, but I think sporting mistakes should have sporting penalties, not fatal ones. There is no reason I can see why racing is made better by the possibility of death following a mistake (or mechanical issue wholly outside the driver's control, even more so).

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This, to me, is what the halo is designed for. Henry Surtees Brands Hatch Crash 2009



Might have helped Philipe Massa, but the spring could have easily slipped beneath the halo.

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Mission WinLater