Driver safety in Formula One is a big deal. Martin Brundle, a former driver and now pundit, recently drove one of Lewis Hamilton‘s cars and felt uneasy about the safety features.
“I recently drove one of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes and you’re buried inside the car with the halo and the headdress and the HANS device around your neck. And I didn’t actually feel particularly safe, I felt more trapped,” Brundle shared on Reddit during a Sky Sports AMA.
Brundle raced in 165 Grands Prix from 1984 to 1996, except for a break in 1990. He drove for teams like Benetton and McLaren, standing on the podium nine times. He reminisced about driving Senna’s iconic black and gold Lotus Renault turbo: “It’s wonderful because you can see everything in front of you, but it’s not very safe. [In my era] if you crashed, you were pretty much going to break something: your feet, your ankles or your legs as I certainly did.”
Brundle agrees with Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton has also voiced concerns about his car’s seat position. With Mercedes facing early challenges this season, adapting wasn’t easy for him. Yet, he bounced back by winning at Silverstone and later at Spa-Francorchamps after George Russell was disqualified.
“The cars are so long, they’re much longer than I used to race in Formula 1,” Brundle noted. “They’re probably more akin to the cars I raced in Le Mans. But it’s the pedals. It’s the steering wheel, it’s the feedback from the car on how linear everything is that matters as well.”
Fans might think that even experienced drivers have their own fears when it comes to modern racing cars.
What do you think about these changes? Are they making racing safer or just more complicated?
