Ricciardo explains 'Aeroscreen' advantages

©RedBull

Daniel Ricciardo says the visibility of the Red Bull cockpit protection device is better than the Halo.

Red Bull will run the device - dubbed by the team as the Aeroscreen - during FP1 at the Russian Grand Prix on Friday morning. Ricciardo will be carrying it on his car during his installation laps and having already had his seat fitting with the Aeroscreen on the car he says the supports are strategically placed to not impact on vision.

"First impressions it seems okay," Ricciardo said. "Basically the part of the structure is in line with the mirrors, where the mirror structure is, so it does not really block any more vision than what we do have already with the mirrors, and the front is pretty open.

"You obviously have the structure of the top but that is pretty high and out of your eye line anyway. It is one of those things that you definitely put it on track and check, because things change when you move. It is easy to sit in the garage with it, but so far the impression is that it should be okay visibility wise."

Asked about visibility in wet conditions or if oil gets on the screen, Ricciardo is confident there are sufficient solutions available to such scenarios.

"That is something I asked about. A quick one for now is that during pit stops you will have a tear off system, NASCAR has something similar. Then you can get these coatings on the screens, I guess it works a bit like in the rain with the visor, you have the Rain X or whatever, and the stuff just floats off.

"So oils and things like these get dispersed quite quickly, say have stuff like this, so there are few short-term things right now which will be used tomorrow if needed."

The Aeroscreen will only be on Ricciardo's car for the installation lap, with Red Bull keen for it not to impact on the rest of its plans for FP1.

"I think as well because it is quite a structure it is going to affect the aero and all that, so it is really just to see if it works and then we will get on with our program. We have a few things to try on the car tomorrow, so obviously running that will affect it."

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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.