17 YO Driver Recalls Horror to Thank Safety Measure That Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton Once Opposed

F1 Academy driver Chloe Grant recently recalled her horrific crash from the Monza race in 2023 on the . The 17 year old driver was candid on how she broke her wrist after going airborne and 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.

Advertisement About her Monza crash, Grant told the hosts, The British driver highlighted how she then got hit and picked up front wing damage. Eventually, her car went airborne and . Grant also cited that her car too. It was due to the gearbox breaking in half and some oil leakage that caught flames.

Advertisement 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 on their cars.

The Briton felt that it was the addition to an F1 car. Loading embed tweet https://twitter.com/bestgug/status/1678085450685382656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Meanwhile, Verstappen felt that it . 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.

Advertisement 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 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 ‘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 , Loading embed tweet https://twitter.com/notepaddock/status/1559197573369430017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw 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. Advertisement.