Grosjean hopes Halo will be 'just a transition phase'

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Haas F1 driver Romain Grosjean is making no secret of his dislike of the new Halo driver protection system.

The FIA has made the device mandatory on all cars in Formula 1 in 2018. While accepting the need to improve safety, Grosjean says he hopes the Halo will prove a short-lived feature in the sport.

“I hope the Halo is a transition phase and we are going to find something better," the Frenchman told Crash.net this week. "I think something different would be better.

"This is stage one,” he added. "Safety has to come, and it is good enough to put on the car."

Grosjean - a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association - said that he wasn't worried about visibility from the cockpit, but rather that fans can no longer see the driver.

"“You can get used to driving with the Halo, that is fine," he said. "But I find it sad that we don’t see the drivers anymore.

"At the end of the day there is a driver in the car."

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Grosjean also lamented the fact that drivers are no longer permitted to change their helmet design during the season.

"We’ve got one helmet livery per year allowed and [with the Halo] we don’t even see the livery of the helmet!" he complained.

Grosjean's dislike of the Halo is shared by his Haas team mate Kevin Magnussen.

"It's very annoying and ugly," the Dane told Ekstra Bladet newspaper this week. "It's hard to get in and out of the car. Hard to get the steering wheel on and off. It's just awkward and annoying."

Like Grosjean, Magnussen admitted that he didn't expect the Halo to have a major impact on driving.

"It's fine because in the corners you look to the left and the right anyway," he said. "It distracts the eye, but it's not a concern.

"But mainly a Formula 1 car to me is open, so this is wrong for Formula 1," he insisted.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.