Several Formula 1 teams could be at risk of not having their 2018 cars ready for pre-season testing next year due to the lateness of the decision to implement the Halo, according to Force India COO Otmar Szafnauer.
The controversial cockpit device was made a mandatory requirement from next season by the FIA at the last meeting of the Strategy Group following the British Grand Prix, much to the dismay of fans and going against the teams after they voted 9-1 against before being forced through on safety grounds.
Coming some seven months before the first test next February, that might seem like plenty of time to incorporate the Halo into next year's car, however, with the device set to be an integral part of the car rather than an add-on, as it has been in previous tests, those teams that started work early on their 2018 chassis designs have had to reconsider.
“It may delay next year’s car,” Szafnauer told Motorsport.com. “There is a finite amount of time that it takes to design and make a monocoque, and if we don’t get definition in that timeframe, all it does is it delays when it’s produced.
“Right now, it looks like we may not be able to produce it in time for testing.”
Due to recent changes in the regulations, all cars that take to the track in pre-season testing must have passed the FIA crash tests which, for some teams that push the design limits, can take several attempts. Also because Halo will be part of the monocoque structure if just that single area didn't pass, the whole design would fail.
“When we changed the roll-hoop after Alex Wurz rolled and broke the roll-hoop [in the 1998 Canadian GP], the test criteria went up by an order of magnitude,” Szafnauer said recalling a previous, similar example of a fundamental change to the car structure.
“I remember designing and trying to make a roll-hoop that actually passed the test criteria. It took forever. We eventually did it, but the amount of times we failed and redesigned.
“The nice thing with the roll-hoop was you could just cut it off and put another one on that, so the whole monocoque wouldn’t have to be redesigned. If these test criteria are so high that the Halo fails and it fails the monocoque, we’re screwed,” he added.
As mentioned, the decision to introduce Halo, following a failed test of the Shield at Silverstone, has been met with a largely negative response with Jolyon Palmer, who was in the F2 car ahead of Henry Surtees when he was killed by a flying wheel in 2009 at Brands Hatch, recently stating that drivers shouldn't have a "bubble" put around them.
Though the Force India COO accepts why the FIA wants Halo in F1, he admits the quickness with which teams will now have to work could bring its own dangers.
“It’s rushed,” he said. “It would have been nice to have had another year to do it properly. It is what it is.
“The only way to stop it is if the FIA stops it and says we’re going to do it in a year’s time. It’s safer to do it properly than to rush it, that’s the only way I can see stopping it.”
