Page 69 - Bespoke Issue

Ihave arrived at the Circuit de Catalunya in the rain, which quickly turns to snow on the Wednesday. Not good for the rst of the supposedly sunny yaway trips at the start of the F1 Season 2018. The ‘Beast from the East’ has struck bringing snow to Barcelona for the rst time in ten years during the rst week of testing
at the end of February and the beginning of March.
This is the rst up close and personal view for me of the new 2018 machines. Straight out of the trap we have controversy. “Halos.” Halos have been introduced as added driver protection, hopefully stopping said pilots being hit by ying debris from wheels and other small but just as lethal bits of cars which come loose. Felipe Massa suffered a serious head injury when he was hit by a spring during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2009. Understandably Massa argued that the decision on which cockpit system should be used was to be based purely on safety grounds.
Three options were put forward, the ‘shield’, the ‘aero screen’ and the ‘halo’ for the best head protection for drivers. The shield differs from the other two alternatives, by not being an attachment around the edge of the cockpit like the aero screen and the halo. It is more a part of the structure of the nose section and started much further forward than the other two alternatives. The sloping see through screen does not fully extend over the cockpit, but is higher than the driver’s helmet. Although this option was not as effective when de ecting larger objects, such as wheels, because of the amount of resistance to the halo from some quarters it was suggested that the shield could have been the best compromise between safety and aesthesis.
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