The British Grand Prixthe tenth of Formula One World Championshipdisputed this Sunday, was marked by a violent accident that had as the protagonist and great savior the ‘halo’, a mechanism implemented to save lives.
The race was interrupted for almost an hour due to the brutal accident of the Chinese Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo), which was touched by the Englishman George Russell (Mercedes), and who was thrown face down against the protections and against a fence where several commissioners were located who, fortunately, were not hit by the Asian’s car.
The clash between the two caused a chain reaction that also affected the French Esteban Ocon (Alpine), the Japanese Yuki Tsunoda (Alpha Tauri) and the Thai Alex Albon (Williams), who took blows from all sides and who, like that the first Chinese to run in F1 was transferred, as a precaution, to the circuit’s medical center; from where it was reported that everyone was reasonably well, before the organization gave free rein to offer the repetition of the images of the spectacular accident, in which Zhou literally saved his life, thanks to the
‘halo’.
What is the ‘halo’?
“Driving a racing car at such high speeds can never be safe, but in the last decade it became clear that the driver’s exposed head was the big risk left unresolved,” BBC F1 analyst Andrew Benson said in 2018. .
That’s why the FIA, F1’s governing body, began work a few years ago to improve safety in the driver’s head area, without compromising the design of open-cockpit cars.
The solution was the ‘halo’, a device made of titanium – an extremely strong metal – in the shape of a curved T that is installed in the front part of the cockpit.
That bar has a resistance of up to 12 tons, equivalent to the weight of London’s iconic double-decker buses.
The device emerged after several years of research and thousands of safety tests, and was released in 2018.
The ‘halo’ gives the reason
Although most pilots welcomed its implementation, the ‘halo’ was not well received at the time by the entire F1 community.
The fact that the ‘halo’ adds 10kg of weight to the car, which affects aerodynamics, was a major concern.
Triple world champion Niki Lauda, who survived a heavy crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix, called it a “wrong” decision.
Lauda said in an interview with Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport magazine that it was an “overreaction” that “destroyed” F1’s good job of making cars faster.
Criticisms also focused on aestheticsbecause for the first time F1 cars did not have the traditional open cockpit.
The ‘halo’ has even been compared to the forked bone (furcula) of chickens.
The BBC’s F1 analyst felt in 2018 that there is no getting around the fact that the “halo” changes the aesthetics of an F1 car, but stressed that safety has taken precedence over aesthetics.
And the evidence is there. Hours after suffering a serious accident that could cost him his life at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix, Romain Grosjean assured that “the best” that Formula 1 has introduced is the ‘halo’.
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