Red Bull’s Halo concept: safer, or not?

Posted on 21-03-2016 at 15:32 by rynnus – 27 Comments”

Every advantage got its disadvantage, or something like that.

The motorsport in the past few decades has changed at a pace where you say, it is no longer news. Crash in the Formula 1 nowadays is not more exciting than creating a word puzzle, or the watering of your plants. Drivers sit in an almost impenetrable cage of kevlar, where you with convenience with three times the speed of sound against a barrier can pop out, without being really noticeable. Ok, bit of an exaggeration maybe. But Alonso had yesterday about a similar experience.

That, however, it can go wrong, we know also unfortunately. Because the helmet containing the head of the driver is exposed to all external influences, can be any severe rondtollend object is a danger to the safety of your head. The Halo concepts -as we all know– to prevent this, the cabin is more or less impenetrable. This system will probably next year have been introduced. Red Bull came just for the seizoensdebuut-race come up with the following concept.

The idea is that the view as little as possible is limited, but still provides more security due to the small open space above the head of the driver. And there is the same problem. Even though you are in this way protected against small objects (a bolt, a spring), and we wonder how secure such a significant limitation in ontsnappingsruimte really is, for example, if you to a sea of flames must escape. Had Alonso than yesterday from his car can crawl? It is, of course, so that for each solution a new problem may be fictional, but we see the cabins rather open. Incidentally, there is already considerable progress has been made in the safety. So we stood there yesterday to watch that during the whole crash, all four wheels of Alonso’s car at the construction remained attached. Chapeau.