I agree, this is the time to have a failure, not in the middle of the race - but truth be told I'll be surprised if they finish any of the early races...I expect them to finish the end of the season stronger tho.....
New halo from the drivers point-of-view. Ferrari's version Ferrari puts the halo through its paces | Formula 1 (F1). News
It looks bad until you realize that binocular vision will render the center post effectively invisible. Or just annoying. Hold your thumb up at arms length in front of you, and look at something in the distance. You'll see the distant object fine, with just the ghosts of your thumb on either side. The bit on the top may make it hard to see the starting lights though, depending on where you are on the grid.
Right, other than the view of the starting lights racing will be unimpeded by the actual "halo", the center post is the only potential obstruction. That's clear to see from today's photos. And I'd say those high bulkheads block the ability to view much more than the center post will.
The most consistent complaints I've read so far can be summed with "It's ugly, I hate it!" Next in line are questions about how a driver would be extricated if the car was upside down. Valid, but it seems strange to me that anyone would assume those looking into these solutions would have forgotten about this or merely discounted it. I'm sure they're addressing it. No worries, though, about whether it's significantly in the way of egress when the car is not upside down, as the hoop is actually wider than the current cockpit opening. Also keep in mind, Ferrari's is just one solution and the halo they demoed today is only a bolt-on mock up of a prototype.
I would think that extricating a driver with a halo will/would be easier in a upside down car than extricating a driver in a upside down without a halo.
The view from the halo car is like the Opti-Grab from The Jerk. Maybe there will be some lawsuits, lol.
Many cars have an aerial or pitot tube mast right on the centreline in front of the driver, so the drivers are used to looking round minor obstructions. And I think "it doesn't look good" is just "it's change, and I don't like change" pronounced differently.
I agree, and the "because history" (i.e., "F1 has always had open cockpits") arguments aren't nearly good enough to warrant stopping this sort of progress. Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari's demo showed "...the worst looking mod in F1 history!" Really, Lewis?
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaz2hxZLycY"]The Jerk - Optigrab class action suit - YouTube[/ame]
The basic numbers from day 3 (of 4). For those keeping track of Haas, they had a new problem today. Grosjean was driving and he had 3 offs. He didn't damage the car in any of them, though, so they got going again after the first 2 (after the car was extracted from gravel) and the red flag caused by his 3rd ended the day for everyone. Apparently he was having trouble with his brakes, caused by the team learning to develop and control the brake-by-wire system they bought from Ferrari. Teething pains.