Hulkenberg Roll - Halo Helped, or Hindered?

[Diogo Goetz Brand]

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[Tylda]

best currently available solution

No it's not. Aeroscreen or Shield is a lot better solution and a lot safer, also it seems like they stopped works on them so it looks like they are happy that they have device that is not that safe nor as effective as Aeroscreen/Shield would be. Classic FIA, they push bad solutions and wait until a tragedy will come to change them...

 

[JayOTT]

Still the Halo is currently 3-1 up after the season. It showed its strength for Makino in Spain (F2), Hartley at Silverstone and Leclerc in Belgium

The Halo exists because it is the best currently available solution

Jim spouts pro-Halo propaganda. Nothing new under the sun. There was no conclusive camera angle for Makino, no-one was even talking about Hartley and in any case the Shield is a better solution that merely needs someone other than Ferrari testing it. Do not buy into Vettel's claims that it made him dizzy; it is essentially a windscreen, and drivers on the normal roads don't suffer dizziness.

But in the case of this crash, it seems that the only real solution is to accept that formula cars will never be safer than closed cockpit sportscars, and if that means F1 has to become a closed cockpit series, so be it. Better that than the current state of F1 cars (my boycott looks set to continue for another year at least, sigh).

 

[Tberg]

Wait, some people believe the Halo has saved anyone yet, or would have saved Jules???

 

[Dave Stephenson]

I'm not convinced it hindered anything. The car was quickly surrounded by marshals who are able to deal with the fire risk immediately. After that in any situation the driver cannot or chooses not to extricate himself the extrication becomes a matter for the medical team and I feel their procedures would have them ensure the neck is safe and supported and right the car before removing the driver (when there is no immediate danger from fire).

The seat is fully fitted and the driver strapped into it firmly. If they have to be moved around with outside help it is infinitely better to do so while they are still in that position with their core, spine and neck fully supported.

As for the Aeroscreen, if you look at the side profile it is pretty similar so any issue the halo provides in this situation would be mirrored with that solution too but with the added negative that it would actually decrease access to the driver for marshals and medical staff.

 

[BrettSinclair1]

Halo is in place to save the FIA from lawsuits, not drivers from debris.
It therefore does the job it is designed to do...

 

[Kimmo Kokkonen]

Halo is ok. We should always remember that (real) racing it is not a mandatory thing for human, it's drivers own choise to drive those machines. For my perspective Sim Racing is the most intelligent solution for any kind of racing accidents. You can never hurt yourself or break your bones...you only can have a mental knocks if there's somebody faster than you. Also you are able to be as Angry Man as Max Verstappen if you wan't.

Hope this 'real' Racing circus will end soon, those golden days of 'real' Racing are far from the past, 60' and 70' and 80'...Sim Racing is not the same but much more fun, you can ride any car on any track on the planet just start your GTR3 game and enjoy (joke)...

 

[Ricoow]

An airbag that rolls the car back on its wheels would maybe be the next best thing, to be engaged by driver only

 

[paracletus]

Don't know, ask Hulkenberg if it stopped exit. Otherwise it's just guessing with ulterior motives.

 

[James Egan]

An airbag that rolls the car back on its wheels would maybe be the next best thing, to be engaged by driver only

that probably wouldn't work

 

[Slowdive]

Where was the last time that a fire caused serious injuries, let alone kill, a driver? If my memory serves me well, the last big injury caused by fire was Berger at the San Marino GP in 1989.

When was the last time a car caught fire and had a cage that prevented a driver from escaping?

 

[Durge Driven]

Car never caught fire and it flipped at low speed

Hardly dangerous ?

 

[Terry Rock]

Halo isn't perfect, but it is better than nothing. In this case it MAY have hindered his leaving the car.
At this point, we don't really know for sure.
Maybe it was his body weight against the harness keeping him from escaping.
We do know the lack of halo has been at the core of driver deaths...Justin Wilson comes to mind.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

Car never caught fire and it flipped at low speed

Hardly dangerous ?

Cars flipping is hardly an unknown situation, neither is cars catching fire.

If the thing had connected the front of the cockpit to the rollbar he'd have had room to exit - I've always thought the design was the wrong way round. Should really resemble a prototype's cockpit with the glass & roof panel removed, we already know drivers can get out of those.

For everyone saying the suits "can survive an inferno" - well the driver can't, they have to breathe air still.

 

[Jimlaad43]

Jim spouts pro-Halo propaganda. Nothing new under the sun. There was no conclusive camera angle for Makino, no-one was even talking about Hartley and in any case the Shield is a better solution that merely needs someone other than Ferrari testing it. Do not buy into Vettel's claims that it made him dizzy; it is essentially a windscreen, and drivers on the normal roads don't suffer dizziness.

You spout anti-halo ignorance every time you type on the keyboard. Whether you like it or not, the Halo has proved itself more useful than not and you're going to have to accept that and remove your blinkers of ignorance. Not liking the Halo is fine, blatantly ignoring every bit of evidence that it works is not.

Oh, and by the way, Propaganda is biased and twisted information for the benefit of the writer. What I wrote is factual, unbiased and proven.

The shield is something that only looks better. It sucks at deflecting wheels and car-to-environment crashes. Do some research before lying to people for a few likes and a waste of a Disagree.

 

[protonv5]

I was going to post something, but I was reminded that someone was going to tell me how stupid I am. So I changed my mind.

 

[rubaru]

I'm having a very difficult time finding images of a Formula One car coming to rest inverted following a crash. I'm trying to compare images with and without the Halo device. Here are the best I've come up with, with a little commentary about why I think the Halo had nothing to do with extraction time.

Sergio Perez, Hungary 2015
Clearly the car is listing to one side, allowing Perez to extract himself from the side of the car that is raised up off the ground. The car is leaning because it is actually resting on the top of the air box / roll hoop, a structure which still exists with the Halo in place.

Pedro Diniz, Europe 1999
In this unfortunate case, the roll hoop actually dug a trench in the ground, causing the car to sink deeper than perhaps it would be expected to. Diniz was completely trapped in the car because of the roll hoop. Hard to say what effect (good or bad) a Halo would have had here.

Pascal Wehrlein, Monaco 2017
Once Jenson Button flipped the Manor onto its side, his momentum further pushed the car into the barriers, top-side first. Wehrlein was trapped in the car because of the soft nature of the barrier collapsing around him, and not because any structure of the car failed. Consider if a Halo were in place here. Remember that drivers are not expected to exit the car through the gap between the Halo and the car, but rather directly through the top of the Halo opening. That opening would still have been blocked by the barriers.

Fernando Alonso, Australia 2016
Alonso's car came to rest neither completely inverted, nor resting against the barriers. There is just enough space for him to squeeze out. Imagining the presence of a Halo in this image, I believe Alonso still could have made it out through the top of the Halo before being trapped by the barrier. If he had come to rest closer to the barrier (or against it like Wehrlein), then extraction would be impossible without uprighting the car, regardless of the presence of the Halo.

Nico Hulkenburg, Abu Dhabi 2018
Just as in Perez's accident in Hungary, Hulkenburg's car came to rest on top of the air box / roll hoop. Unfortunately, though, the rear of the car is resting on the barriers, preventing it from rolling onto one side to provide him a gap through which to crawl out. On top of being inverted like Perez, he has also experienced the helpless entrapment situation like Wehrlein, because the entire exit area of the Halo is blocked by the road surface.

Is this a foolproof analysis? Far from it. I would be flattered if you were to think I did that and still did a poor job of it. I just wanted to provide similar situations from the past, and try to show why I believe the Halo wasn't the problem. I believe it was the type of accident and the final resting position of the car that prevented quick extraction of the driver.

 

[James Egan]

Halo isn't perfect, but it is better than nothing. In this case it MAY have hindered his leaving the car.
At this point, we don't really know for sure.
Maybe it was his body weight against the harness keeping him from escaping.
We do know the lack of halo has been at the core of driver deaths...Justin Wilson comes to mind.

remember, the halo can't really be used on ovals

 

[Durge Driven]

Indy marshal's don't muck around and look how many

Their marshals to me look more professional because they know the machinery intimately

Most F1 corner marshalls would not know the front from the back

 

[Nick Gregory]

Wait, some people believe the Halo has saved anyone yet, or would have saved Jules???

The only thing that would've saved Jules would have been to go slower. He was going to fast for the conditions.