F1 News

IndyCar's halo alternative tested successfully!

IndyCar's halo alternative tested successfully!

03-10-2019 09:20

IndyCar stars Scott Dixon and Will Power have given their backing for the aeroscreen, which will be put into place for 2020's IndyCar season, as their alternative to the halo.

The halo has been in F1 and other FIA series for two years now and has already shown its worth, potentially saving Charles Leclerc in a pile up at the 2018 Belgian Grand Prix, when Fernando Alonso's McLaren scraped the halo on his Sauber.

However, despite the halo's success, IndyCar have opted for the aeroscreen, and a successful test has been carried out at Indianapolis by Dixon and Power, who have six IndyCar championships and four Indy500 victories between them.

Dixon said on the day: "It’s been an intense project and one that a lot of people have done their due diligence on to get it to this point, and today has been pretty much seamless.

“We went through a bunch of configurations for cooling and where we can push the air to control the helmet – how it feels and how much pressure you have there.

"Ultimately it’s just very quiet. I can hear my radio for a change – normally I can’t hear it, so that’s kinda nice! But there’s actually a lot less load on the helmet too."

Power added: "I’m so impressed with how quickly this all came together, and really no major issues," commented the 2018 Indy 500 winner.

"Just like Scott said, the tear-offs is something they’ll work on and how they fit… but the vision’s fine, there’s no problem in doing a stint with bugs and stuff that get on the screen."