TBK-Light.com

I hope he has dumbed that information down for the press, because static weight is hopelessly irrelevant. That is only relevant for when another car sits (lands) on top of the halo. More relevant is the shear strength (not sure if it's the correct english name, but the value of Tau) unless they asume every studie comes from straight ahead.

Anyway, it's way too long for me with mechanical engineering. I'm sure it will do the job it was designed for, halting big ass objects on a trajectory for the drivers helmet. But deflecting any object can also result in deflecting it in an unwanted direction, especially with smaller parts. We'll see.

You can model only so much. In reality there's always a factor that no-one thought about.
The thing that stands out the most for me in Greg Moore's crash is that someone else went of in a nearly identical way and in nearly the identical spot. He walked away with nothing. Only difference was that Moore's car hit a patch of asphalt which launched the car.

Or take Senna's crash. Investigation showed he could easily walk away if it wasn't for the piece of suspension piercing his helmet. And he could have crashed there a 100 times in the identical fashion and the kinetic forces would send the wheel just slightly in a different path and Senna walked away.

Time will tell if it actually helps or not but personally I'd put my money on it being binned and possibly replaced by something else rather than it being rolled out to other series.

It's from a while ago, and it's a steel proof of concept, but you get the idea.

I'd be interested to see the sums involved, and yes I'm sure it was de-scienced for media purposes, so it wasn't the most useful figure. That said, quite a few of the examples of cars intruding on the area which would be protected by the halo were rated 'Positive on balance', so there must be a pretty large amount of moving F1 car which it can withstand. In fact, they highlight 'car to car' contact as the category with most improvement. The fact that they simulated a positive outcome for Compos and De Villota suggests that it is very much able to reduce or distribute huge impacts.

Some other things noted, in case other people don't get a chance to watch the video (I put some times for some of them in case you wanted to watch that particular part:

- The 'use cases' for Halo were the accidents of Surtees and Wilson; it was specifically designed to deflect large objects
- Based on their data of the strength of various parts of the chassis, particularly the attachment points, the finished Halo unit would be the strongest part of the crash structure
- The Halo 'significantly increases the net level of protection against small debris', particularly when the helmet improvements after Massa's accident are taken into account
- Visibility is still considerably better than the average WEC prototype (17:43)
- Only one driver felt that egress would be a problem, although it is noted that drivers couldn't brace themselves against the test Halo because it was not fixed to the car (18:50)
- Extricating a driver from the car in their seat was unaffected in tests (19:24)
- For an upturned car, the standard practice is already to right the car where possible. However, they did test the device in a flipped test chassis with a person inside. Surprisingly, the front of the Halo raises the cockpit up further than it is raised without, creating extra space (20:23)
- They could not find a scenario in which it was necessary, but have a tool which can be carried in the medical car and was tested to remove the Halo entirely in around 10 seconds (22:02)

All in all, it seems that a huge amount of research has been carried out, but this press conference really should have happened when it was first revealed - perhaps it might have reduced some of the criticism (not to mention the excitable 'HALO WILL NOT IMPROVE SAFETY' videos that are linked alongside that one!). It doesn't solve every possible scenario, but then neither did raised cockpits at first - they have been subtly changed at least three times since 1996. However, I think most of the reasonable arguments against it are addressed in sensible and clear terms.

I have never questioned whether the halo is well-planned. Certainly it will work for the purpose it's been designed.

What I only object is the "safety first" philosophy of FIA. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions", and that's what has happened.
Of course FIA should be the governing body of auto racing, because vast enterprise like motorsport needs high-level associations, but the safety standards for each category should be left for the owners of the series (that is, Liberty Media). Motorsport is entertainment, and by tweaking the rules, the cars and the tracks step-by-step in the name of safety, they have alienated and bored millions of fans (and maybe even drivers and team personnel, although they won't admit it). And FIA will keep doing that, because they can never be satisfied with the current level of safety, even though the fans and drivers would accept the risks. Of course FIA isn't the only one who's been ruining the sport, Bernie and F1 Strategy Group are also to blame.

Nonetheless, I've lost 80% of my interest in F1 compared to situation 15 years ago. I know it's naive to wish that F1 would have remained the same as it was in my childhood, but if we say there's been progress in terms of safety and technology, there's been even bigger decline in terms of excitement. I cannot help it. I just can't get excited anymore. And I doubt FIA even cares about it.

I remember Vettel said the halo is needed to prevent fatal accidents like Wilson had in indycar.
I said ok. They race on ovals with over 350kmh and you cant see at that high speed objects flying around. F1 had only one oval corner from 2000 to 2007 and they had problems with it (2005)
So F1 is not needing the halo, but indycar does. I dont understand indycar either then. They introduce new 2018 car and cockpit is still open (wich is good) but they didnt do anything in terms of that driver protection. But they know Wilson crash can always happen again in ovals. Speed is much higher in oval races than F1 in Monza.
And still they are putting it for F1, indycar needs it. Its not like there are tractors waiting near runnoffs so someone can hit them all the time, it was a bizzare unusuall crash that happened once since 1950. And they freak out (FIA) for halo

Fucking hell I'll be happy to see it arrive just so this forum can move onto speculwhinging about whatever rule change is proposed next.

_________________

halo for me is just an excuse to put more sponsors in a very visible area

and we can take one positive thing is the risk compensation, drivers believe that halo increase the margin for dumb moves and we get more yakety sax moments during the races (if they don't issue too much penalties)

_________________
Motorsports trend for 2024: climate change ruining races everywhere

If they just invent clear carbon fiber.....

Interesting video, couple of observations:

1) The steel bars contort to almost hitting the driver on the head (it's actually not clear, it may well have touched the lid).
2) With #1 in mind, a drivers natural reaction to seeing a wheel flying towards them would be to brake and try to miss it, physics dictate their head would move forward while braking, possibly contacting the halo in that situation.

There is no doubt that in that exact scenario, the Halo would be the difference between life and death, but what's going to happen in all those other million to one situations where the presence of Halo causes worse injuries than it's designed to prevent?

Also when was the last time a wheel tether broke?

I don't understand why they put the halo on shock absorbers. I assume to test/measure the impact force for further calculations, but otherwise it's a bad visual example of how the halo would cope with an incoming tire. Anyway, we'll see next year. Probably the reason for quickly abondoning the halo is because the public can't seperate drivers from each others because the helmets are barely visible.

I guess the teams will build the Halo as a structure part of the chassis, so they wouldn't be able to drop it if it's proven unpopular or unsafe

_________________
Motorsports trend for 2024: climate change ruining races everywhere

It was a proof of concept, so I guess they weren't too worried about a bit of deformation. Carbon fibre is ridiculously stiff in the direction it is moulded in, so I doubt this is a problem on the actual design - any torsion would likely be transmitted into the chassis. The actual design also has enough of an opening that the driver's head won't reach it anyway, otherwise it completely defeats the purposes of HANS and padded cockpit sides.

What sort of injuries do you think Halo would actually cause?

It was just a proof of concept - you can get a good idea of how it should work, and at the same time effectively measure the forces that you are looking to deflect.

Clearly bored in the MTC.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13124 ... -in-woking

I can reliably inform you that turn 11 would be...interesting. In the Chinese sense.

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

That is why they made the call on running the Halo for 2018 now, Teams needed to know sooner rather than later in order to properly integrate it into there 2018 designs.

During the FIA media briefing they made the point that the Halo isn't something that can just be stuck on after the fact, To be as effective as possible it needs to be an integral part of the chassis. Thats why the junior formula's won't have to adopt it straight away, It will be phased in as the various categories introduce new cars starting from 2019.

So haven't the FIA said that teams are able to alter the HALO aerodynamically? During the Hungarian GP Sky F1 UK said they are able to have little aero bits up to 2cm in length, like the serrated teeth on the front of the Merc's cockpit to aid in air flow for the engine etc.

So if that is allowed....then the pressing safety item isn't actually uniform across the board, and each team can tailor it to their aero needs? Also more stupid ugly winglets and aero bits??

Nothing different to being hit by a wheel in the face, so it's a moot point. My only concern would be pieces being deflected down into the cockpit, it'd only take one reasonably small but correctly shaped piece of carbon fibre to deflect down into someone's chest for the concept to be a disaster (a piece that would otherwise have just bounced off the drivers helmet without Halo).

I thought the Halo was to be a steel tube (like in the video) wrapped in carbon fibre? not just fibre on it's own.