Kvyat against Halo despite 'very strong' arguments

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Daniil Kvyat remains against the introduction of the Halo despite "strong" arguments from the FIA during Friday's driver briefing.

The FIA delivered a presentation to the drivers at the Hungaroring on Friday afternoon as F1 teams prepare to vote on the Halo's introduction for 2017. It is understood the presentation involved a case study of major crashes in different single seater categories over the past few years, where no outcome was shown to be negatively impacted if the Halo was introduced.

While there were limited examples of the Halo having little impact, the presentation showed it would have been a positive addition in the majority of cases but Kvyat says he is still not in favour of the cockpit protection device being introduced.

"The arguments they gave us are strong," Kvyat said. "But the final word would be no.

"The arguments they gave us are very strong. It does help us when the wheel comes off and when you roll and this and that. If we really want to, we can make Formula One completely sterile and completely safe, but the question mark is where we need to stop.

"I don’t know if we have already gone too far or if we have reached that point with Halo. I might be playing the devil, but I have already said multiple times that when I come to the race track I already know it might be my last day in the office. It looks like now that it is fading away.

"I’m not trying to be a hero or anything, but in the end we are racing for other people and Formula One is a show."

Asked which way he would vote, Kvyat replied: "It’s not up to drivers to vote, it’s up to bigger people, which will be soon. There will be a vote."

And Kvyat fears the Halo is the first step towards closed cockpits, which he says "is not Formula One anymore."

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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.