F1 cockpit protection, what we really need

21 Jul 2017

Preferably I don’t want a canopy over my drivers. It looks bad, it’s very situational, and just against what formula 1 was and has been. Also look at Indycar the’ve suffered the most recent open wheel death and what does their new chassis look like? An open wheel open cockpit car. There’s things called freak accidents, Drivers know the risks when they drive open wheeled cars that’s why they continue racing, anyway I digress. So FIA want cockpit protection eh? Let’s get one thing out of the way, the halo is a terrible Idea

The halo: a glorified POS

First off (beating the dead horse here) it’s looks bad. It doesn’t even look like a halo it looks like a wishbone. Secondly, it server 1 function, stop tyres . Why is this a bad thing you may ask? Well a tyre hasn’t come off in years because of something called wheel tethers yah mind blowing concept right? Another thing what about the other debris out there? You know, the thing that massa got hit by? Well it was a small spring but what if it was bigger. Big enough to possibly cause a fatal head wound, but small enough to fit right through the arches of the halo? Stop saying this is what we need for driver safety when there’s a gaping hole for objects to move right through. And before you make the point, well it could have saved Justin’s Wilson and Julie’s Bianchi let me bust your little bubble, do you think a piece of carbon fiber can withstand the punishment from going through the underside of a stationary two ton digger at 180 kph? Let me answer that for you. NO it can’t it would have had the same results instead a carbon fiber wishbone shatters and sends more debris towards the driver and the workers themselves. In Justin Wilson’s case the nose cone was on a ballistic trajectory meaning it would have gone through the little gap on the top and still hit Justin Wilson. The halo is garbage and it should be thrown in the can so the FIA or the FOM can develop the real solution.

The shield

Our only other option, the shield. It’s streamlined, it looks alright for where it’s placed and it stops the smallest of debris from hitting the driver. There’s no gaps up front for springs to go through, but tyres are an issue. My fix, change the angle of the shield so tyres deflect up instead of towards the driver’s head like the Red Bull design, or make the shield taller over. Also the other argument is that this can impede driver’s exit from the car. Yes it will (another reason to get rid of cockpit designs FIA) but if it’s big enough it can act as an T-bar stopping the cockpit from being crushed in a rollover incident.

Anyway that’s my thoughts on driver canopies (I wish we didn’t have them enforced) leave your thoughts in the comments and which do you prefer

Comments

Seb has confrimed thay this windshield made him dizzy
He didnt ecen test the shield for a single lap

Better than being hit by a spring, like I said this needs to be developed I never said it’s good to go. I said it’s a better solution

He hatednit

I definetely agree the halo is horrible
But i dont think a shield is the solution
Maybe there are other solutions

Yeah that’s right! Make it more protective. Doesn’t matter if it looks crap. You know what’s the next better thing to do after the halo? Don’t race them in actual F1 cars but Race them over simulators! SARCASM OVERLOAD

Just making a compromise…….

Your freak accidents point is spot on because F1 in my opinion has reached a very high safety standard (look at Alonso’s accident from last year) and the halo in my opinion is just a rushed idea to silent fans that mourn Jules Bianchi but even they know that’s a 1 in a million situation

Fans are just too paranoid these days, I wouldn’t have to make this if people just moved on. Some can’t accept that Jules and that digger where at the wrong place at the wrong time

I dont get all the hate toward it , ok its awfully looking but hey safety first , and hundred of engineers work on it , so it must be useful i guess

I hate it cause it’s so flawed all it’s gonna do is hurt the driver’s safety not help it

The halo is not designed to save a bianchi accident. Hitting a jcb is always gonna be bad no matter what so no point in talking about what it’s not designed for. Now, stuff like massa and Wilson’s accidents it would stop. Sure, stuff can still fit through the gaps but 99 per cent of the time devris will hit the halo and be slowed down to not be fatal or lessen the injuries.

And no, I do not like the look of it at all, but it’s safety. The racing will stay the same, really it’s a small change overall that only affects safety.

No it wouldn’t have stopped massa’s accident watch both again and watch the trajectory of the debris
Massa’s incident: the spring would pass right by the center post and trough the huge gap on the left of the halo. Result: still would occur with massa’s same injury sustained.
Justin’s Wilson. The cone would pass over the arch intersection point an hit just Wilson on the head. And if he’s lucky the halo would trap the nose cone inside the cockpit.
Also extra bonus to all cockpit protection it traps drivers in the cockpit in a rollover event.

The halo is flawed and should be scraped it doesn’t work. And still hasn’t been prove to work and we should be pushing the shield

Here’s my idea, A duct brings in under under the car, and shoots it up right in front of the driver’s head, any small debris, which is really the only problem that can be solved here, would be flung up into the air and land off the track, but if it did Happen to hit a driver’s helmet, its speed would be greatly reduced by the angle of impact.