Why the halo is at the centre of F1's TV push

Formula 1's halo and aesthetics are awkward bedfellows. So, it is a little odd to consider that the halo is at the heart of a push to give F1 fans something innovative and worthwhile to look at.

The time and energy devoted to creating and critiquing the halo has been exhausting, but it has faded into the background over the first three races. Now it's back in focus, but for a very different reason.

The debut of a new halo-derived TV graphic, with inspiration from the spheres of video games and films, over the last grand prix weekend in Baku was a tantalising hint at what's to come with F1's base TV offering.

Nobody paying attention over the Melbourne weekend could have missed the horrible intrusion the halo made on a couple of key onboard camera shots. This boring, largely unpopular obstacle drew the eye away from an interesting vantage point, so the new graphic covering that up is already a small victory.

One of F1's greatest challenges is getting across just how skilled the drivers are and how hard they work to hustle a car at the limit. Plonking a massive safety structure right in front of the camera nudges that task towards the impossible.

There is no getting around that unless the onboard camera is moved - maybe mounted in the halo itself? - so the next-best thing for F1 to do was to fill the space taken up on that view with information that tells the viewer what's going on. It might be harder to spot a gentle correction of oversteer in the cockpit now, but speed, throttle and braking displays help bridge the gap between the viewer and the driver.

More significantly, though, it illustrates the increasing effort that is going into F1's TV offering, and hints at a future that enhances that experience for every audience.

The halo graphic displayed live speed, gear and engine rev information, as well as throttle and brake usage. F1 technical producer Justin Laurie acknowledges this is all "data we've used before" but calls it "a starting point to try new things".

"That space is not doing anything, there's no information or action in that area, so we wanted to utilise that space in an innovative and creative way," he explains. "Over the first few races it's been about getting the package to a good standard, and concentrating on that. With the halo we didn't want to put something out until it ticked all the boxes really."

Now that has been completed, and the graphic was successful, the production team can kick the process into the next gear. In recent years, F1 has become more complex than ever, and that means a race has more layers to it than ever before. Helping the viewer peel back those layers will only make it easier to understand. As F1 is unlikely to get simpler, it should fight fire with fire and arm the viewers with more relevant information.

F1 should fight fire with fire and arm the viewers with more relevant information

F1's TV hub has access to much more of teams' data. This stretches from elements that are commonplace in the coverage, for instance GPS positioning and live sector times, to much more sensitive information including aerodynamic measurements, tyre and brake temperatures.

Imagine being able to visualise the development of a race, not so much that it predicts everything that is coming but helps build the tension. Race leader Valtteri Bottas is warned that he needs to manage the engine: up pops a simple thermometer displaying how his Mercedes power unit's temperature compares with that of the closing Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari engine, and tracks that comparison over the next lap.

Illustrating the jeopardy that lights up a grand prix could have a powerful impact on the quality of the broadcast, but this is why it is also extremely tricky. The more detailed data available to the viewer, the more available to rival teams. Revealing mid-corner G-force levels isn't going to concern Mercedes, but showing tyre temperatures ahead of a safety car restart might.

F1's director of broadcast and media Dean Locke promises that "we're going to try and add as much as we can that is available", but cautions: "We have to work in advance for what data sets we want from them. It is a competitive sport, isn't it? The teams aren't going to give you anything that gives another team a competitive edge, but we can work with them.

"There will be new elements that we bring forward. As a package, we want it to be relevant and there are always elements that we can refresh every season. It's a very organic product, so what we are excited about is [that] there is the real estate on the halo graphic.

"We can put more in, get that data and various elements to the viewing public, and excite them a little bit."

F1 has started working more closely with the broadcasters to satisfy their needs, hear more consumer feedback and draw on their experience elsewhere. There is a regular Friday meeting between TV chiefs and broadcasters, while researchers conducted a survey after the Chinese Grand Prix to critique the design changes in the coverage as part of the recent rebrand.

F1's enhanced marketing and research departments are already having an impact. Locke explains that "we took influences from film, from gaming" to create the halo graphic because that is what fans were saying they liked, and that sort of feedback is something "we didn't utilise before". The same goes for listening to the various broadcasters that work in F1 but have massive experience levels from other sports.

One example is the rise in "telestration", which is the process of annotating subjects on the screen. In the Azerbaijan coverage, we saw the width of the track at the narrow castle section visually measured, Mercedes' usual rear wing and its low-drag Baku version compared, plus the curious extra paddle on the back of Vettel's steering wheel was examined.

Football fans will be well-versed in the picking apart of key details, mainly through half-time interval analysis and Sky's popular Monday Night Football segment. Sky has brought that to the table in F1 with the SkyPad, while Channel 4's graphic comparing qualifying laps in Australia was a simple and effective way of showing the difference in straightline speed between the Mercedes and Ferrari.

Introducing more of that into F1's core TV coverage is good because it gives every broadcaster more to work with when it comes to giving explanations to fans who may be missing interesting storylines or developments. This is particularly useful as there are around 90 F1 broadcasters working in array of languages and to different levels of quality. So, Locke says, "we're trying to demystify the sport, but not alienate the more learned viewers in a way".

Another way he puts it is that "we're taking the stories that we read in Autosport and try to get them on screen". But Laurie says this is also helpful for viewers who are not hardcore F1 fans.

"It's just about finding more creative ways to highlight things," he says. "We are all experts here and we know, when we show something on the screen, what we're looking at. A lot of the commentators might do a really good job of talking about that, but not all the commentators.

"If we're showing a picture, we want that subject to be clear to the audience - new fan or expert fan" F1 technical producer Justin Laurie

"Everyone's talking about different things. So, if we're showing a picture, we want that subject to be clear to the audience, whether that's a new fan or an expert fan."

Key to the success of the final product will not be graphics for the sake of having graphics. F1 doesn't need a real-world version of Anchorman 2, in which the fictionalised birth of 24-hour news coverage includes Ron Burgundy demanding "MORE GRAPHICS!" and being surrounded by constantly updating stock tickers, news bulletins and other information. When this happens - and it does happen on a daily basis in real life with badly crafted television programmes, newspapers and magazines - the product becomes a minefield and identifying useful information becomes a chore.

Locke calls it a "huge change of ethos" for F1 to be considering the balance between the expert aficionado and the casual fan so carefully. He references the introduction of team logos into the tower that runs down the left-hand side of the screen, and explains that it's a response to the outbreak of emoji use that now dominates modern online communication.

"We tried to take a bit of a different stance to that," he says. "People are using icons in everyday life now and they're easier to understand. We have multi-language to worry about, which other sports don't, so the language we use has to work across different languages.

"One really challenging area is tyres. You can make a tyre icon that looks like a wheel, is quite small, and fits into the graphic. But if you do that, and write 'SS' [for supersoft] - what is 'SS'?"

That might seem obvious to the more devoted viewer but F1 needs to appeal to a wider audience if it's going to retain mass appeal. We've seen in our efforts trying to build Autosport.com's Plus subscriber base that, compared to the number of more casual readers who will dive into a news story, there is a smaller pool of committed aficionados. Alienating people for not understanding what F1 considers simple is unwise.

Small things can go a long way, like graphics that contain a brief explanation of the virtual safety car, or a red flag situation. Similarly, labelling the three available Pirelli compounds with a simple "high grip, high wear/medium grip, medium wear/low grip, low wear" is a neat solution to the unnecessary F1 complication of having seven slick tyre compounds. And it has not come at the cost of any existing information, as Locke stresses: "That was a misconception. People were like 'Oh you've taken tyres away', but it just rotates."

This adds up to a quiet revolution in F1's TV coverage. It might not always be big, bright and centre-stage, but the refinements represent a bigger shift towards recognising what fans want and need to follow F1. Locke compares the product to an F1 team's racecar: "The off-season is very short. It is very hard to turn up at the first race and have everything ready; it is impossible to go to Australia with a full graphics set. Much like the teams, [we will] develop throughout the year."

Fans should pay close attention to those developments. The way we consume F1 is changing, whether it's streaming a race online, watching via a social media platform or on good old-fashion TV. But what we see is more important than how we see it.

F1's renewed commitment to that process suggests it is more aware of this than ever.