Why F1's safety crusader thinks fans were robbed

The halo cockpit protection device ignited controversy over the look of Formula 1 cars in 2018, but did the championship miss a chance to improve its show and increase driver safety at the same time?

Jonathan Noble May 10, 2018, 9:40 AM

Upd: May 10, 2018, 4:19 PM

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"Race cars are neither ugly nor beautiful," Enzo Ferrari once famously said. "They become beautiful when they win."

The legendary team boss's words stand true to this day, even if Formula 1's far from pretty halo means that all of the 2018 cars still leave many of us shaking our heads in disapproval. There have been few things in F1's history that have left people with as many conflicting feelings as the halo. On safety grounds, it is 100% the right thing to do. On beauty grounds, it gets the thumbs down.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.