Nico Rosberg feels the Halo didn’t disturb him, during his brief testing of the device in Free Practice 1 of the Belgian Grand Prix.
The Mercedes AMG PETRONAS driver completed a total of three runs with the Halo fitted to the W07. Rosberg managed to finish the opening session on top of the time sheets with a time of 1:48.348, ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton, with his time being achieved with the device fitted.
During Free Practice 2, Rosberg didn’t continue this momentum as he finished in sixth with a fastest time of 1:49.161. He was unable to keep up with the strong pace that Red Bull Racing were achieving, although he did not use the Supersoft tyre that Red Bull did, instead using the Soft to set his fastest time.
Rosberg believes his runs with the Halo were a success as he managed to set the best time of the session.
“The team have done a great job on the halo,” said Rosberg. “It doesn’t disturb me when driving.
“I could go fast straight away and even set the best time of the session with it this morning, so I think that was a success. After that, car-wise we seem to be quick. The grid is a bit all over the place this afternoon with people doing different things with the tyres.
“It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out in the race. Long run pace will be important, as you can overtake here. I don’t know how we’re looking yet – we’ll need to look into that. But there was a lot of tyre degradation, so managing that on Sunday will be important.”
