Fire raises 'interesting' Halo question - Magnussen

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Kevin Magnussen says the need to jump out of his Renault due to fire raises an "interesting" question regarding the Halo device.

The Dane was required to quickly get out of his car after returning to the pits at the end of his installation lap, with a fuel leak causing the Renault to catch fire. Magnussen was out of the car within five seconds as he jumped out of the front of his cockpit - with the fire at the rear - and suggested the Halo would have slowed his exit beyond an acceptable amount.

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"Personally I’ve never run the Halo so I’m not the best person to ask," Magnussen replied when asked if it would have been a different story if he had a Halo fitted to his car. "In my opinion five seconds is too long. If the car is on fire you don’t want to take five seconds. I don't know, it's an interesting question..."

With Magnussen's team radio telling him to get out of the car, he said he reacted to the smoke he saw and was out before the message reached him.

"No, I didn’t know [before the fire started]. Everything worked well on the car on the in lap, so just saw the smoke and hopped out.

"I was already out when they were talking [on the radio]."

However, Magnussen said he had no concerns getting back in the car for FP2, with Renault having an understanding of the likely cause of the fire.

"I kind of knew what caused it when it happened. We had some new parts on the car on the fuel system so…

"It's quite nice to know that the car is not likely to go on fire!"

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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.