Grand Prix Drivers Association chairman Alexander Wurz has said that he is shocked by Formula One's decision to delay the introduction of the Halo head protection device.
F1's Strategy Group opted to call off the imminent introduction of the device in a meeting on Thursday, and Wurz admits he was not expecting that decision.
"They have started the development on this in 2010 so it's not just happened overnight and they presented this Halo solution as a workable first go as additional head protection," the former Williams driver told Sky Sports. "In their opinion it is a better system than anything than anything we have at the moment and this is how it was presented to the drivers just a week ago, so I'm surprised of this U-turn, to go away from what the experts recommend. Already it's in a design process of the race cars with the technical guides of the teams, to now step away and delay by one year, I'm surprised by that."
The Austrian also rubbished claims that F1 needed danger to be popular.
"Let's say the most popular year of Formula One in 2009 with the highest global viewing figures, there is one clear graph, popularity goes up and is stronger," he said. "The racing was close, was competitive but there is another graph which is the opposite trend, which is injuries and fatalities, it just went down. So I see no correlation at any point that we need to have dangerous racing where drivers are endangered for the popularity."
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Posts: 8,527
Why would we like it more because its more dangerous? Its dangerous as it is, with or without Halo. Danger doesnt make it more exciting, drivers pushing to their limit do.