Louis Deletraz, Charouz, Magny-Cours, 2018

FIA planning thinner, better-looking ‘Halo 2.0’

RaceFans Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: The FIA is planning how Halo will be developed following its introduction this season.

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

Comment of the day

One team has set the trend for this year’s car designs, reckons @Amg44:

I have a feeling majority of cars this year would adopt/copy Ferrari’s aerodynamic philosophy of last year.

Last year Ferrari had some genius design ideas on their car but unfortunately they messed up (unreliability and driver error) and lost at least one title. This year majority of cars will copy their design ideas especially sidepods.

Would be interesting to see what Mercedes comes up with as majority teams are looking likely to go Ferrari’s route. Also all this copying proves what a great car Ferrari had last year.
@Amg44

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Plutoniumhunter, Haggle and Colin Forsyth!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is via the contact form or adding to the list here.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

33 comments on “FIA planning thinner, better-looking ‘Halo 2.0’”

  1. FIA Stage 2 halo design should have been Stage 1…but knee-jerk reactionary scheduling.

    If visibility is an issue with the current Halo…does that make the Halo a known safety hazard? If there’s an incident this season caused by the halo blocking driver vision…hope the FIA has more knees to jerk with.

    1. Your right Jimmi!

    2. Hopefully just a poor choice of words.

      If it is indeed an issue and is found to cause a serious crash, it’ll probably be removed right quick and their lawyers will have a meltdown.

    3. Well, @jimmi-cynic, they waited as long as they could – using time to evaluate alternatives brought forward by both Red bull and Ferrari – so that this is the best that could be introduced for 2018.

      But no, it is not a “safety hazard” – Visibility is ok, and the most important area remains unobstructed (the sides) but off course things can be improved. That will probably also lower the weight, another factor teams are unhappy with.

    4. They should make an hybride of the Halo. Windscreen who ends on top with the HALO so there is an clear view on the road even on Spa.

  2. Vettel fan 17 (@)
    16th February 2018, 0:17

    So privateers who do good are penalised on WEC?

    Is Bernie in charge???

    1. Todd (@braketurnaccelerate)
      16th February 2018, 0:34

      Can’t have the only manufacturer left in LMP1 getting beat by Privateers! Or WEC’s golden boy Alonso for that matter.

    2. Not quite what they’re saying.

      They’re saying that if it’s clear the performance specs (I assume of the engine/pu) prove to be very different from those submitted, they can be penalised.

      I can sort of see the rationale – it would be a bit like allowing a V12 with unlimited revs and fuel to compete in F1 against the others with a current spec PU. There would have to be some kind of equalising formula to try and ensure the power of both are similar.

      1. There is an equalizing formula in WEC, it isn’t perfect, obviously. This is about making sure that the input to that is not artificially low.

        1. @bosyber, to that, I would add that there have been a lot of complaints in recent years that manufacturers in the GT classes were deliberately providing false information to the ACO in order to rig the Balance of Performance in their favour – Ford in 2016 was an example that many found particularly blatant (particularly since there is an argument that Ford shouldn’t have been allowed to take part in that race to begin with – the ACO had to break their own homologation rules to let it compete).

          Essentially, what the ACO seems to be threatening to do is to then extend the same penalties for the same behaviour into the LMP1 class – that said, I can’t recall the ACO ever actually penalising anybody in the GT class for cheating the BoP regulations.

          1. Yeah, I think that what anon mentions certainly gives the right perspective for the wording of this rule – it is aimed at preventing teams from doing what we saw happen in the GT classes recently.

            The article does state that performance levels were fixed so that a hybrid has an advantage – but then when you look at the fact that it also uses about half the amount of fuel, that makes sense to me – like the V12 example @dbradock used

      2. In 1988 turbo cars were limited to 150L of fuel and 2.5 bars of boost, while the 3.5L n/a cars were allowed UNLIMITED fuel. Care to guess which one won all the races in 1988? The key being that refueling was banned in 1988.

        This comment by the ACO is proof that their BoP system is pure garbage and completely the antithesis to what racing should be.

  3. It’ll be interesting if anyone else takes on the Torro Rosso / Mercedes design philosophy on this year, or if even they fold to the Ferrari direction like RBR did and Williams have done…

    1. I think u will find, that it’s a RedBull philosophy to run high rake on the car, Newey has pioneered this idea for many seasons now.
      It’s the Ferrari side pods that were special, not the ride hight at the rear. They just copied RedBull on that 1.

      Word is, Mercedes are going that way this year too, as they tend to run a very ‘flat’ car with regards ride height.

  4. Considering Ferrari was still short of Mercedes last year in terms of engine power output, especially in qualifying, and their focus on reliability during the Winter, should we still expect the same Mercedes domination on power-circuit this year, at least in the opening races?

    1. @ducpham2708 I expect nothing else. What’s worse, I heard the new, updated power, spec engine will debut in or after Monza. Which makes sense given the limitation of 3 engines: you would expect the new units to be introduced after Canada and Monza. Or given the power-hungry nature of those tracks, introduction for Canada and Monza and use an older unit for a race that’s less power-hungry.

  5. Still not sure why they didn’t let the F1 teams design their own halo and crash test it, like they do with nose cone??

    Surely, more smart people trying to integrate it would have been more efficient than a slow iteration of bad designs.

    1. Hi @nicotexas, I think most of the cars safety equipment ie. Wheel tethers, fuel cells and the foam around the survival cell all have to come from FIA approved suppliers. Since the Halo is a piece of safety equipment it has to come from a supplier.
      Nose cones primary function is a place to mount the front wing and help condition airflow downstream, making it a performance piece and therefore the team’s responsibility.

    2. On the contrary, this is more like the standard side impact – that is also produced by a certified thrid party supplier – makes it a lot easier to do quality control by the FIA. Or indeed, as @eoin16 mentions other safety aspects.

      There is not much in the form and shape you could change without starting to get risky with safety.

  6. I had a thought tonight regarding the limit of 3 engines per year. Instead of say someone like Ferrari focusing on making an engine capable of many races, what if they went the complete opposite way and went balls to the wall maximum power where the engine only needs to last 1 weekend, or even more extreme just change the engine after practices so the new engine only needs to last for one race. Quali won’t matter as you’ll just be starting from the back of the grid at every weekend but you’d have a massive power advantage as all the other competitors have engines designed for reliability and not power. Also, with the grid penalties not carrying over from race to race I don’t see any danger with the rules.

    We’ve all seen the likes of many current drivers come from the rear and do very well and that’s with similarly designed equipment, so I’d imagine it’d be possible with significantly more power!

    Obviously this is a crazy idea and shouldn’t be taken seriously but I couldn’t help myself after thinking of it saying hmmmmmm it’s so crazy it might just work…

    1. It might for Monza, but what about circuits that have very limited passing potential? I think if teams could that would have been done already, plus I believe the new rules specify the engines provided must all be of the same spec. Doubt customer teams want to buy 20 engines a season at the ungodly rates they already charged for 4.

  7. It’s not the width that makes the halo look ugly – it’s the angle. If it laid flat, parallel to the ground – instead of being tilted – it would merge with the streamline of the car.

    1. not the width or thickness*

  8. Quite disappointed about WEC LMP1. their EoT is even worse than DRS.
    What’s next, a peddle kart with 300 lap head-start just to give them a chance.

  9. Granted I don’t know how sturdy the halo is but one thing that’s bothered me about is the possibly it could get dislodged in an accident similar to Kimi/Alonso at Austria a few years back. Had the turning vane on Alonsos car got caught on it then couldn’t it have in theory yanked the whole device off and moved it across Kimis cockpit?

    I mean I like to think they’ve taken those things into consideration but as I said, I don’t really know all that much about it.

    1. They did take that specific example into consideration (among many others).

      The halo can’t be just “yanked off”. The test versions we saw were dummies for the sake of determining how it affected the driver’s vision. They were just stuck on, but the real ones are integrated into the safety cell.

  10. Michael Brown (@)
    16th February 2018, 13:00

    Maybe the Halo 2.0 would have saved Bianchi, since the FIA admitted the normal Halo would not.

    1. Nothing could have saved Bianchi. Bianchi died because of an extreme deceleration. His brain smashed against his skull. No Halo 2.0 or any other protection unit would had saved him. The problem with Bianchi was the presence of a hard thing inside the circuit (a crane). Halo could have saved Villota, but not Bianchi.

  11. The only thing that would have saved Bianchi’s life is the heavy duty vehicle not being there.

    1. Meant to be a reply to @mbr-9

  12. The best halo is one so thin that it’s invisible.

  13. Of course Alonso is condering WEC, they are making sure that he will win there.
    Best driver of all…

Comments are closed.