F1 Academy driver Chloe Grant recently recalled her horrific crash from the Monza race in 2023 on the BackSeat Drivers podcast. The 17-year-old driver was candid on how she broke her wrist after going airborne and “upside down” in her ART Grand Prix car. Grant also thanked the Halo for saving her from a fatal injury. Halo is a safety measure that all single-seater formula categories use and something Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen once opposed.
About her Monza crash, Grant told the hosts, “It was Monza, Lap 1, Turn 1 chaos. It looks wide into it and then it’s very tight. And I was going for it. I had a really good start and then when we got to the braking zone, there was a slight issue and I was like uh-oh and I was going really really quick into the cars in front.”
The British driver highlighted how she then got hit and picked up front wing damage. Eventually, her car went airborne and “upside down”. Grant also cited that her car “was on fire” too. It was due to the gearbox breaking in half and some oil leakage that caught flames.
In this crash, she only broke her wrist and was lucky to escape due to the halo, keeping her in a safe position. The marshalls quickly dragged her out of the car, safe and sound.
The introduction of the halo device was purely for safety reasons in 2018. However, before that, several drivers including Hamilton and Verstappen opposed the inclusion of a halo on their cars. The Briton felt that it was the “worst looking” addition to an F1 car.
Halo saved my life – F1 star Chloe Grant survives horror fireball crash when her car flips and lands on rival
Cara Delevingne slammed for ‘garbage behaviour’ after rudely snubbing Martin Brundle’s gridwalk interview at Silverstone pic.twitter.com/XkR5EbCmY4
— Lilian Chan (@bestgug) July 9, 2023
Meanwhile, Verstappen felt that it “abused the DNA of Formula 1”. However, the duo later realized in 2021 how the same halo device which they opposed kept them safe in one of their infamous crashes at Monza.
How the Halo saved Lewis Hamilton from a terrible injury
The 2021 Italian GP was building up a lot of nerves and tension as the title battle between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen had reached its boiling point. This became evident when the duo tussled after the former came out of the pits. The Mercedes driver was desperate to get ahead of his Dutch rival.
However, neither of them yielded and eventually collided and crashed out together out of the race. Verstappen’s car went literally on top of Hamilton‘s head. But it was the halo that saved the British driver by bearing the weight of the car and pushing the RB16B away from him. Had it not been for the halo, this situation could have ended very differently!
Even the #44 driver realized the gravity of his accident and thanked the halo for saving his life. He said, “If you see the image, my head is quite far forward. I have been racing for a long, long time and I am so so grateful I am still here and feel incredibly blessed that someone was watching over me today.”
At Monza 2021, Verstappen’s Red Bull was launched on top of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes when Max travelled over a sausage kerb. The Max’s wheel can be seen pressing down on Hamilton’s head with the Halo obstructing it from placing the entirety of the car’s weight onto him. pic.twitter.com/SHT8EBcizw
— Notepaddock (@notepaddock) August 15, 2022
While Hamilton realized the importance of the halo after his crash, many drivers have understood its significance by seeing several such incidents in recent years. Be it Romain Grosjean’s inferno crash in Bahrain in 2020, or Zhou Guanyu’s intense rolling crash at Silverstone in 2022, the halo has precisely done its job, as the FIA intended.
Even in the aforementioned Grosjean incident, several FIA measures such as fire-resistant suits, gloves, and helmets helped the Frenchman. For the FIA, driver safety is a recurring issue. Thus, they are ensuring to keep this process of improvement going on.
