Some schematic drawings and a video have been doing the rounds of the Formula One media, as the technical regulations for next year become clearer.
We’ve heard buzzwords from the brains trust like ‘wider’, ‘meaner’ and ‘more aggressive’.
Certainly the lower, wider bodywork makes them look marginally more appealing in an aesthetic sense, but I can’t help but notice that what’s missing from the renderings is any kind of halo or aero shield device.
It’s a bit pointless to get excited about how a car looks without these safety devices, and from all accounts we will have something on the cars for next year, with a decision on exactly what variety the resulting apparatus will be due in the coming weeks and months.
It’s also timely that Nigel Roebuck has published his thoughts and criticism of adding such devices to the cars.
“I’ll admit that my aversion to halos/canopies is cosmetic, but – in terms of motor racing’s essential appeal – I don’t believe it is at the same time flippant,” Roebuck wrote.
“These days everyone goes on about the sound – or lack of it – from the ‘hybrid’ generation of F1 cars, but the appearance of them is no less important. Already the top of a driver’s helmet is the only sight his fans have of him, and halos/canopies would rob them even of that.”
I’m the first one to admit that I like the open cockpit, but we’ve been inching toward having something like an aero shield for a long time now. Modern F1 cars with their stooped noses and cacophonous canopies bare little to no resemblance to cars from just a few decades ago.
There’s a really good reason for making those changes; they made the cars safer.
To his credit, Roebuck doesn’t want to see anyone get injured – nor does he believe that spectators want to see drivers fall into harm’s way.
“Not even in the days of my youth, when racing was extraordinarily risky, did I ever subscribe to the once widespread suggestion that ‘people go to races to see drivers get killed’,” he wrote. “Morons perhaps, but no one else.”
Formula One might well be fighting for audience’s attention at the moment, and the altered sound profile of the modern-era cars has surely turned some people off. But if anyone remaining threatens to abandon F1 because they only watch in the hopes that someone will have a massive shunt and end up in hospital (or, dare I say, a mortuary), then we should all encourage them to leave.
As for the argument that we won’t get as much access to the sight of the driver, do we really get that much at the moment? It seemed poignant when Mark Webber concluded his final lap in an F1 car without a helmet, allowing his fans to get a glimpse of the man as we rarely see him.
In other ways, of course, we get far more access to drivers than ever before. Just take a look at Lewis Hamilton’s Instagram account and you’ll see much of him than most people ever wanted.
As we return to Monaco, the track where Jules Bianchi claimed Marussia’s first and only points, I have no doubt he will be in the hearts and minds of the entire F1 paddock, and the spectators at the track and watching at home.
We need to keep evolving the cars, and now is the time to put safety front and centre. Perhaps, in the future, we will perfect a more accessible design.
But for the moment, we need to put to rest only the potential for further motorsport heartache and tragedy.
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