Halo won't significantly change F1, predicts Ricciardo

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Daniel Ricciardo says he doesn't believe that the new Halo cockpit protection device will will have a radical effect on Formula 1.

The Halo has been made mandatory for all teams taking part in the 2018 world championship. Its appearance has been criticised by fans, and drivers have voiced concern about visibility in the cockpit.

But Ricciardo predicted that the Halo would soon become just another part of the sport's furniture, like the HANS device.

"I think people will get over Halo quite soon," the Red Bull driver told RACER.com this week. "It's only the look [fans] will need to adjust to, but the racing shouldn't change one bit."

He said that there has been other equally controversial changes down the years which had quickly been accepted.

"When the cars changed between 2008 and 2009 they also didn't look very good," he pointed out. "But people got used to it, and then it became normal to have the tall and narrow rear wings. Even though it was a very strange Formula 1 car."

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Ricciardo emphasised that regardless of the aesthetic concerns, safety had to come first.

"I think there's been very mixed feelings between drivers and within the media and among fans," he admitted. "It doesn't look as nice as how the cars look now,

"It's more to save the freak accidents. If any part of the car flies off it can stop a fatality.

"People forget, and it's easy when there hasn't been one for a couple of years," he said. "People say it's all fine and safe, but every time something happens it highlights the dangers.

"It won't change the adrenaline of the sport, the excitement," he insisted. "All it's really doing is protecting us from a freak accident.

"The racing will still be the same. The risks we take are still the same. So I don't see any real big change."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.