Verstappen and Hulkenberg Still Not Swayed by HALO

The ‘halo’ seems to have passed the acid test with flying colours last weekend at Spa. However, Max Verstappen and Nico Hulkenberg still aren’t fans of the cockpit safety device.

A first lap crash between Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc, rooted in Nico Hulkenberg’s brain fade as the field barreled towards the La Source hairpin, saw the McLaren hit the Sauber’s halo as it flew over the top.

The tyre marks on the safety component left no doubt that Leclerc was likely spared injury, or perhaps something much worse, thanks to the halo, an opinion shared by many after witnessing dramatic footage of the action.

Verstappen however still isn’t convinced by the halo’s presence.

“I’m still not a fan of it,” he told Ziggo Sport, unsure Leclerc would have been injured without it.

“You never know. It’s always difficult. If you see how low we are in these cars, I wonder how much it would have hit him or not. I don’t think so.

“But of course it’s better that no one was injured.”

Beyond its safety merits, the halo’s ungraceful aesthetics have yet to win over the 20-year-old Red Bull driver.

“It’s a super ugly thing. Like a flip flop on your car,” he insisted.

Perhaps more surprising however is Hulkenberg’s relatively unchanged stance on the halo, having initiating last Sunday’s chaos after a braking blunder.

“I have to see the facts and admit it does bring something to Formula 1 especially the safety that we appreciate in the car,” said the Renault driver in Thursday’s driver conference in Monza.

“Mixed feelings about it still. But it’s not down to me anyway. It is what it is.”

The German did acknowledge however the safety element’s purpose.

“We can only speculate what would have happened without it but it looked pretty clear from the point the tyre marks were all over the Halo and from that point of view it’s done a very good job to keep the head safe.”