As a driver, I would not have been pushing for the halo. It has not been warmly welcomed by the teams, who regard it as far from the most elegant solution, adding weight up high, and it has not been embraced by any purists who follow Formula One. That said, I would not be wasting my time trying to fight it. If you are swimming against a strong side, you are only going to use up valuable energy.

When I look back at 1994, the year of Ayrton Senna’s death, we were quite exposed in comparison to modern F1, but I never at any point felt in danger. If I ever had, I would have stopped, quite frankly. Danger, I believed, came with the territory. There is danger in riding a bicycle, in sitting on your...