The FIA has defended its decision to introduce the Halo for 2018 amid the backlash from fans.
It was announced on Wednesday that the Halo cockpit protection device would be fitted to all cars for next year, after several months of testing it and other designs had concluded.
The Halo was first seen in person during pre-season testing in Barcelona last year, when Ferrari ran a short stint with the device on.
Several other drivers have since run the Halo during private testing and free practice sessions, with feedback from the drivers being positive and that visibility has been unaffected despite the pillars sitting directly in front of the driver.
Meanwhile the FIA continued further testing of the device in various scenarios: car-to-car contact; car-to-environment contact; and external objects.
It was found that in car-to-car contact, the Halo “was able to withstand 15x the static load of the full mass of the car and was able to significantly reduce the potential for injuries,” according to the FIA.
They also found that in car-to-environment collisions the Halo was “able to prevent helmet contact with a wall or a barrier in many cases, using a selection of previous incidents as a reference” and “in the case of external objects the Halo was found to successfully deflect large objects away from the cockpit environment and also demonstrated an increased net level of protection against small debris.”
Extraction time was a concern for many as the Halo appeared to be an obstruction to drivers getting in and out of the cockpit, especially in instances where the car rolls, such as Fernando Alonso’s high speed crash in Australia last year.
However, the FIA have found “no issues regarding egress from the cockpit and multiple extrication tests were conducted with the Halo in place, with a revised procedure formulated to ensure safe extrication.”
Other cockpit safety devices that have otherwise been tested have allegedly been proven to be less effective than the Halo, such as the Aeroscreen which was run by Red Bull during free practice at last year’s Russian Grand Prix.
The Shield that Sebastian Vettel briefly tested during the British Grand Prix weekend was lined up to be the FIA’s new priority design for cockpit protection, after proving to be highly effective during static testing.
However, following the run Vettel said that he suffered dizziness and that forward vision was hampered by distortion caused by the curvature of the design.
With all the signs pointing in the Halo’s direction, the FIA have concluded it will be the best design for a 2018 introduction.
The Halo will undergo further redesigns in conjunction with the teams and the drivers to find the best possible solution.
