Autosport said:
Sources say nine of the 10 teams voted against the halo, but the FIA said it would become part of the regulations for 2018 on safety grounds.
Oh fuck sake. This defeats the entire purpose of the teams' strategy group if their actual opinion doesn't matter. Technical regulations have to be passed unanimously! Well, at least the cars looked nice this year. I know Ferrari has a veto, but that might not be valid for safety things. They have the world's amazing power units in the back that are effectively engineering voodoo, but they couldn't come up with anything better above the driver.
Show that image to anyone who's unfamiliar with what the car looks like and ask them "which part makes this car look silliest?" and I'll bet few of them would pick the halo.
This isn't a bad question! Can you think of any other vehicle in any form where the driver stares out with a blockage directly between their eyes? No. All the other goofy bits of the car are all designed to improve performance in some way, too, where this does... not. It's not even attractive in any sort of sleek way or something that blends in with the body. It's irredeemably ugly. One reason the semi-cockpit looked better was because, well, it looked a whole lot more natural, like a fighter jet canopy.
Would a closed cockpit basically roast the driver alive?
Even if air conditioning were legal, no one would put it on the car because it would add weight. You know, it might be legal! I have no idea. There are other things that the cars don't have that you think they should (like an onboard starter) but are removed because it would change the design of the car. In terms of climate safety for the drivers, they already roast alive in the helmets and lose heaps of water weight during the races. For events that are a 2hr max it's fine.