Will the halo ruin Formula One?

Just one race into the season, Formula One is in the grip of an “identity crisis”, said Jonathan Mcevoy in the Daily Mail. For the first time, all cars must feature “the halo” – a “cage-like” safety device that sits on top of the cockpit and is designed to protect drivers’ heads from flying debris. Fans and drivers alike are disgruntled by these new additions because they “further hide the drivers from their audience”, making them harder to distinguish from each other.

No one disputes that the halo is ugly, said Oliver Brown in The Daily Telegraph. But can that really be more important than protecting “human life”? F1 has been tackling its “safety deficiencies” for decades – after Ayrton Senna died in 1994, for instance, major improvements were made to the structural integrity of cockpits. For too long, however, nothing was done to address “the vulnerability of drivers’ heads”, even as that proved to be “the common denominator” in several deaths, including Henry Surtees’s in 2009. The halo is just a “natural next step” in the sport’s “quest for better protection”. But F1 is meant to be dangerous, said Richard Williams in The Guardian. Otherwise, what’s the point of it? By limiting the dangers that drivers face, it risks devaluing itself “profoundly”. At a time when the sport is struggling to retain its audience, “the halo could be the most effective method yet devised to reduce its appeal”.