Formula 1 is increasingly being perceived as too easy, too safe and likened to a Playstation experience as risk is increasingly diminuished and the aura of drivers as gladiators a thing of the past, a scenario that perturbs four times world champion Lewis Hamilton.
When asked about safety in Formula 1, which includes plans to introduce halo style cockpit protection for F1 cars, Hamilton said, “I do feel like I’m a little bit more old-school. Safety is something we have to work on and F1 has got to a safe place.”
“But in Baku [for the Grand Prix of Europe] they wanted to open up the pit lane entry and make it easier. They were saying: it’s so fast and dangerous and I was thinking: it’s not really dangerous at all. It was tricky to navigate but that is how racing should be.”
Hamilton, speaking to the Daily Mail, explained his love affair with the sport was rooted in the risk factor, “That’s why it excited me. Firstly, it’s dangerous. Living on that edge. Of course, I don’t want to crash and get seriously injured but that’s a part of it.”
“I miss those old tracks where you couldn’t run past the white line and off over the kerb, over the astroturf, on to the grass and come back on easily. Now you can drive beyond the edge of the track and come back on.”
“That’s why it’s easier for younger drivers to come in. Because that fear factor of going beyond that white line has shifted to the wall in many places. That is why a kid like Max Verstappen can come in and go off and come back on. It’s just easier.”
“In the drivers’ briefing, sometimes all these guys are talking about is the track being smooth. Smooth as the road. They want it to be smooth. They don’t want to feel any bumps. They want the biggest run off areas. They are talking about safety walls.”
“I like facing the danger and respecting it. It’s kind of like sitting in front of a cobra maybe and the thing’s going to bite you. If you sit really close to it, the danger is it’s more likely it’s going to bite you in the face.”
“In F1 when I grew up, the cobra was here, right up close and the way they are pushing it, it is going further and further away,” mused Hamilton who will be starting his 176th grand prix, when the 2016 F1 world championship resumes in Austria this weekend.
Read the full story at GRAND PRIX 247
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