Easy to say when we aren't the ones driving. Should drivers sacrifice their safety for our entertainment? There are risks in racing and sports and other aspects in life, but when we are aware of how to make something safer and a proven life saver at that, to remove something that exists and proved itself would flat out be negligent.
The sport could be vastly safer if they made the cars slower, which could be easily achieved through the regulations. They do this, to a degree, but they'd never make the cars slow because it would fundamentally change the sport. And yes, make it less entertaining. Of course slow F1 cars may be too absurd a suggestion, but why not enclose the wheels? Why not run entirely closed cockpits, like an LMP car? Why not race exclusively on tracks with slow corners and expansive paved runoff? The point is, safety is a spectrum. The FIA, with the teams and other stakeholders, calibrate it to a level that they think strikes a good compromise between safety, sport, and spectacle. The drivers then have a choice: they can participate, or they can pursue safer paths in life. Now that it's here, the halo will never go away. That genie is out of the bottle. But I think it was too big a compromise. Apparently this is an unpopular opinion. Fair enough. For what it's worth, I'm not speaking purely as a fan. I raced open wheel cars. Not very successfully, and I never drove anything close to as fast as an F1 car, so my credibility from a driver's perspective is limited. But, for whatever it's worth, I wouldn't have wanted the halo on my car.
The halo has saved lives in slower open wheeled cars as well. I liked the looks of the cars without the halo as well, but I certainly am not going to suggest we remove the halo that can save lives because I don't like it. I want to see F1 be the fastest road course cars on the planet and I want wheel to wheel racing in the process. If the cars are built to be as safe as possible, I can't complain about that, especially if it allows these cars to race as fast as they do. We will see crashes, its part of the game. I don't want to see anyone hurt or die. You have literally said you don't like the halo and would remove it because the cars are too safe. Whatever open wheel car you drove is irrelevant to the drivers currently driving right now. You are not a Formula 1 driver, or even an F2 or Indy car driver. You are a spectator/fan. I'm not sure why you would rather see the possibility of death than let the drives race with an extra piece of safety that reduces that risk. I am sure there are some drivers that would prefer no halo, especially when it was first introduced. I'm certain ever engineer would get rid of it because it makes the cars slower. I'm not a fan of it myself. I would agree with the argument that we saw a relatively low percentage of deaths without the halo. But it has to do is prove itself once. I think it likely saved the life of Grosjean in Bahrain. Not to mention a few other situations where it was helpful, perhaps prevent injury. That is more than enough to say it's worth being on the car.
