HOCKENHEIM, Germany -- FIA safety delegate Charlie Whiting wants all drivers to complete a practice session with Halo attached before the end of the year in preparation for its introduction in 2018.
F1's Strategy Group unanimously agreed on Thursday to postpone the introduction of some sort of frontal cockpit protection after deciding it would be "prudent" to conduct more on track tests with the Halo fitted. The Halo has only run on four occasions, twice in pre-season testing with the original prototype on the Ferrari, once with an updated prototype in first practice at the British Grand Prix and once on the Red Bull during an in-season test at Silverstone.
Whiting says the lack of driver feedback could lead to unintended consequences if Halo was rushed through for 2017 and is instead hoping for all drivers to test it before the end of the season in order to better understand how it impacts on a driver's vision.
"The FIA has decided that the Halo is the future, as has been stated in the past," Whiting said. "The first step was yesterday to take it to the Strategy Group, so that is exactly what we did.
"The decision was taken, as I believe you know, that simply because only three drivers have ever tried it, and they have only done a total of four laps, this was something that everyone felt was quite a relevant thing and it wouldn't really be feasible in the short term to get the relevant number of laps with the Halo. That was the reason for introducing if for 2018 instead of 2017.
When asked why the FIA had not conducted tests earlier, Whiting said: "This is something that we had to leave to the teams because we couldn't at that point feel as though we could actually insist upon trying to put it on one of the current cars.
"But there are also problems, if you talk to anybody from Red Bull for example they say they can't run Halo for more than two laps before the air intakes for the cooling of the engine and cooling of the gearbox start to be affected. What we are looking to do is make it clear that every driver has to try it for a whole free practice session during the course of this year.
"That would give us a proper way of going forward so we don't get caught out by something that is very hard to change back. That's really the idea."
Whiting said the FIA is still keen to pursue Halo over Red Bull's Aeroscreen alternative for 2018, but said the key concern is currently visibility.
"At the moment it's Halo but there will be some form of additional frontal protection. If, for example, the Aeroscreen can be redesigned to fit the free head volume - which is one of the stumbling blocks at the moment - that might be the way to go. But I think we need to look at visibility first because that is the thing that is a little bit of an unknown, so we really do need to make sure that is not a sort of showstopper. But it really would be similar between the Halo and the Aeroscreen, I would imagine."
One concern raised by critics of Halo is how it would impact driver extrication if a car rolls and catches fire, but Whiting said that had been considered and was not the biggest factor behind Halo not going ahead for 2017.
"We're not neglecting it, it has been thought of. Now, for example, if a car turned over and was on fire I think it's quite unlikely ... if it has been in an accident big enough to cause a fire then the driver probably can't get out by himself anyway.
"Then the first course of action will be for marshals to get there and turn the car over and this is the sort of thing you see quite regularly. So I have always felt that a car being upside down is always a worry but the marshals are normally there pretty quickly and they would turn it back over. That's the way we've always felt about that particular scenario."
And Whiting confirmed the aesthetic appeal of the design had not been a barrier to Halo being introduced.
"The reason they deferred the Halo is purely because the drivers haven't had a good chance to assess what they can see out of the car with it on - that's fundamentally it. I know that some people have said they don't like the look of it, but it's never come across as being the reason for not having Halo, which is I think what you were asking."