About the HALO with George Russell
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| Written by | Photos: Fanni Váradi |
Following a successful test at the Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours in July the FIA Formula 2 Championship revealed the F2 2018 car in Monza last weekend. The new car will be raced in the 2018, 2019 and 2020 seasons. Besides many new technical developments, the biggest change will be in the engine and safety.
The new F2 car complies with the latest F1 safety standards and a 3.4 litre single turbo-charged Mecachrome engine which delivers 620 HP at 8750 rpm. The car accelerates from 0 to 100 km/hour in 2.90 seconds while to 200 km/h it takes 6.60 seconds with a maximum speed of 335 km/h.
After FIA confirmed the use of Halo system in Formula One from the upcoming season, they introduced the same safety system in F2 and most likely will be used in GP3 as well later. The development program continues over more tests in December where engineers and designers will be focused on improving the Halo.
There are many doubts about the new system. We asked George Russell current GP3 Series driver about it, who tested the Halo last July behind the wheel of the W08 Mercedes F1 car. The biggest question about Halo is visibility.
“For sure it is not a very pretty looking device.” he started about the Halo “But I was extremely surprised when I run it. The visibility was much better than I expected.”
Most of the teams and fans disagree with FIA’s choice, saying it ruins the look of formula cars, but George thinks people will adapt themselves to it. “I believe it is just going to be one of these things, where after a year or two people will get used to it. If you look at Formula One for a moment, when everybody had the T-wings on the car at the start of the year, everyone was saying how terrible they look and we need to ban them but now you have forgotten about it and you move on. I think in one or two years’ time it will be the same with the Halo.”
FIA tested many devices like the Aeroscreen to make racing safer, for now Halo system seems to be the best option. “It is going to improve the safety. I think they will continue and develop it and maybe in a 5 years’ time we will have a perfect system, which looks good and it is safe. We have to compromise sometimes to find a middle point. You are never going to please everybody.” said George.