IndyCar drivers say F1-style Shield is the way forward

IndyCar’s president of competition and operations Jay Frye told Motorsport.com on Saturday that one of IndyCar’s two head protection solutions for 2018/19 is very similar to the F1 Shield.

The F1 version is  due to test at Silverstone next week on a Ferrari, and several IndyCar drivers have swung their weight behind the idea.

Power told Motorsport.com: “It absolutely looks like the right idea for us. Absolutely.

“So if the testing shows it works from the vision point of view, there’s absolutely no reason not to run it on the cars. I mean, I think it’s an absolute must-do.

“If we can get it the right height for a driver to be looking through it, and not over it, then I think we’ve gotta go with it. There’s no reason not to.

"You can see it’s still going to be fine for when drivers have to get out of the car themselves after an accident. So yeah, we need to do it.”

Hinchcliffe said: “I think it’s the future, I truly do. Right from the get-go when we were shown the renderings of something similar on an IndyCar, I think we all liked it.

“It’s functional, it’s sleek, and it’s safer. I mean, look back at the IndyCars of the 1980s and you’ll see they had flexi windshields for the drivers to look through but this version is a lot more functional and, frankly, cooler-looking!

“I’m obviously saying this before the testing starts, but I think it should be applicable to all types of track; we wouldn’t need different ones according to oval or road/street coruse. I’m no engineer but I think it should work.

The Schmidt Peterson Motorsports driver added: “It’s a great solution and the way forward. It would have saved me from that concussion on the Indy roadcourse in 2014, when I got a wing endplate right in the forehead.”

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kimball and Chilton were similarly enthused.

“That looks about right,” said Kimball. “The hard part will be places like Iowa, Texas and even Pocono where you have steep banking, to make sure there isn’t too much transition between looking through the shield and not.

"I think the shape will be fine though, because it’s what they do on fighter jets and they don’t get too much distortion.

“I think IndyCar should go this route – it’s the best one for us, because it’s still an open-cockpit car, but with better aerodynamics, and a windshield. It’s just an IndyCar with a bigger taller windshield.

“The other idea I like is that once you have a windshield like that, it gives you the option of running heads-up displays, which would be massively cool.”

Said Chilton: “As soon as I saw it I liked it. It’s not going to save you from everything – like Newgarden’s shunt at Texas last year, for example.

"But it is reducing the dangers that you have less control of, the unsighted ones, like maybe the Henry Surtees accident [in Formula 2, 2009]. It will deflect debris flying straight at your head and that’s really important.

“We’ll wait and see what’s said by whoever tests it, because we don’t want to affect our vision too much. But if someone tells you it affects vision by five percent but improves safety by a lot more, then it’s the way forward, isn’t it?

“The other thing I was thinking is that I think it will push the technology for how to keep glass clean, make it more water repellent and so on. It’s definitely the best solution I’ve seen for an open-wheel car.”