What's Hideous, Weighs 15 Pounds and Can Support a London Bus? F1's New Halo

This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:

This article was published by Michael Leary (@Terronium-12) on February 10th, 2018 in the Formula One category.

 

Well that title isn't incredibly biased...

 

It's amazing to hear the venom spat at the F1 halos, and yet in Indycar, they just got finished testing their deflectors at the Phoenix test, and most of the response, both from fan and drivers, is positive.

 

I think f1 has lost the plot. I won’t be buying f1 2018 this year and I haven’t watched a proper f1 race for ages now. 70s to early 2000 was the best then lost interest. Don’t care for it this year at all.

 

It’s all factual. It weighs 15 pounds, can support a London bus and the halo is undoubtedly hideous!

 

That thing is fugly..

 

Because it doesn't look terrible by any chance?

 

Why not replace the halos with little kids instead.
Strap a kid onto the front wing and let them protect the drivers
from oncoming debris. They're already taking over the umbrella
duties from the grid girls, protecting the drivers from the sun.
Kids can do anything these days.

Replace Charlie Whiting with a seven-year old while you're at it
and let kids handle the press conferences, too. If kids can successfully
work iPads and computers at age 3-4, they can certainly run F1 better
than the old fossils currently performing the task. Get with the times.

 

I don't really habe much of an opinion either way, it's hard to argue that F1 is too safe, because they were doing that in the 80s and 90s. But at the same time it's pretty ugly and not very elegant, which is disapointing.

I was kind of excited to hear when the teams were able to add farings to the Halo, because then it sounded like it could be used for more innovation from all the teams and was a new exciting place for development. We are only a week or two away from the launch of the cars but the F2 cars that have been shown with the new liveries don't look that bad.

 

I dont know why they don't just have closed cockpits at this point

 

To be brutally honest, i really hope that in the first race of the season, there is a crash where a wheel or something bounces off the halo and saves a driver's life, so everyone can shut up about "ooh, the halo is disgusting, get it off *cry* *cry* *cry*".

 

I am clearly not wishing harm upon anyone. I'm hoping the halo stops them getting harmed.

 

Takes time to develop, without side doors extraction is a serious problem for single seaters

It will also (in theory) deflect and protect the drivers from debris, which to my mind, is a more present danger than loose wheels.

 

What I'm trying to say is that the sooner the halo proves itself, the better. It is surrounded by people looking at the what, not the why, and therefore discussions about it degenerate into useless insult matches as soon as it is mentioned. When the halo proves itself, this will all stop and everyone will finally shut up about it.

If I'm not allowed to defend the halo because it's against the AUP, then the AUP needs tweaking.

 

How long have F1 been active? How much more data and time do they need to develop this? I'm sure it's been brought up for many years.
Even if drivers are against it, I'm sure some eggheads have designs and theories to how drivers would be extracted. I have no proof of any of that, but with all the money poured into R&D over the years, it'd be a shame if they have not one simulation of a closed cockpit F1 car.

 

I can't imagine the visibility is good with that bar down the middle like that. It just seems so outrageous to me.

I think the Indy Car solution is much more elegant and perhaps more effective, at least against a wider range of debris.

For example, if a suspension bar (or any other small piece of debris) came loose during an accident, what's to stop it from penetrating the cockpit in the gap between the halo and the body?

Sure, the chances are small, but anyone who follows motorsports knows that weaknesses will always be found when it comes to safety measures.

To that end, why not just enclose the cockpit? Open cockpit cars are always going to be dangerous. Period. If you're serious about driver safety from being struck by foreign objects, then just enclose the cockpit. You can keep it open-wheel, and just let the designers run wild with the idea. Gran Turismo's Red Bull X formula cars, anyone?

When Dan Wheldon passed, I felt it was only a matter of time before Indy Cars took on a form something more like an open-cockpit LMP car. And sure enough they moved in that direction with the big built up bodywork around the wheels. I still feel this will be the ultimate result. But maybe it will instead be something more like that futuristic beast from Gran Turismo.

 

Yeah I'm considering stopping watching F1 as well for the 2018 season. Doesn't have anything to do with the halo but the races are so boring lately (granted 2018 was a little bit better again than the previous years). But give me some WEC or GT3 races any day.

 

What is the halo doing apart from stopping injury in a crash. When else does it work?

 

It would seem though that a lot of fans don't think this way, and it will take the halo being proven for them to change their opinion.

 

It would probably have worked for Massa in Hungary when Barrichello's rear suspension spring
came flying toward him, and there would probably have been no crash to speak of.
Isn't the idea of the halo to protect from debris and not necessarily crashes.

 

Can we please just get off the topic of irrelevant stuff like driver injuries and driver safety, and focus on the most important thing (as judged by the article headline).. it's looks!

 

A damaged piece of bodywork coming loose? An exploding Pirelli?

 

Actually, in that particular incident, no it would not have.

I won't post a video here, but if you go find the footage from the T-camera, you'll see that the suspension spring doesn't travel down the centre line of the car, but to the left of it, so the halo's front central support wouldn't have stopped it.

Also, the angle of the hoop means that it wouldn't have stopped the spring either. The point of contact with Massa's helmet was just above his eye brow, but well below where the hoop would be. Using the photo below as a reference, it would've struck where the Hublot branding is.



So against larger objects like tyres for example, yes, the halo does its job. But anything smaller than the gap between the hoop and the chassis will get through.

 

Not to be silly, but wouldn't Massa's car be totally different from this one? Even his seating position in that instance?

 

A cursory search on both the 2009 and 2017 regulations showed the seating positions weren't actually that much different, suggesting a relatively stable period of seat positioning between 2009 and 2017.

(Granted, the photo is from 2016, but you get the idea.)

 

Regardless of how well the halo will work when it comes to protecting the driver in accidents, it doesn't look that elegant or good for outward visibility, which could prove to be its own hazard. I suppose future generations of halos might not be so bad. IndyCar's wind deflector looks better but I don't know how the two would compare safety wise. I'm curious how a closed cockpit would compare in terms of safety and visibility to both the F1 halo and the IndyCar wind deflector. The profile of the halo already lends itself to a closed cockpit.