Davidson: 'Halo' must be accepted

While the FIA ​​and the teams met at Heathrow (Great Britain) on Friday January 29 to discuss the future regulations of the F1 in 2017, pilot protection was discussed with the "Halo", a device that would protect the pilot's head. This safety has been studied since the accidents of Jules Bianchi at the Japanese Grand Prix on October 5, 2014 at Suzuka and Justin Wilson in Pocono (Pennsylvania) on August 23.

Anthony Davidson, pilote Toyota en WEC and former F1 driver, was able to test a prototype similar to that proposed by Mercedes on simulator. “If an object ends up in the trajectory, this device will always be more effective than a simple open cockpit”, commented the 2014 WEC world champion to the journalist Will buxton. “It's not as beautiful as an open cockpit car, the visibility is not as good, but I don't think these arguments can be accepted. This protection must be accepted because we cannot tolerate pilots dying due to an impact on the head. »

The 36-year-old Briton recognizes that visibility poses certain problems with this system, even if this concern is less than with the prototypes he drives in the WEC. “The side visibility doesn’t seem too different from what pilots are used to, but the version I tried had a central blade. This is not an ideal solution and there never will be one. The more we try to improve pilot safety, the more visibility suffers.”, added the Toyota driver.