F1 in "tricky" spot over Shield/Halo decision, says McLaren

Sebastian Vettel complained about visibility problems and buffeting from the wind during an installation lap with the Shield screen during first practice for the British Grand Prix.

The German had planned to do a long evaluation programme with it, but was so unhappy that he asked for it to be taken off after just a single lap.

The disappointing first outing with the Shield has left F1 with a bit of a headache now, as pressure is mounting on it to decide what to do about introducing cockpit head protection next year.

With the Shield needing more work, and the Halo having little support among teams, there is no obvious solution as to what should happen, especially because teams want to start working properly on their 2018 cars now.

The debate over the Shield or Halo will continue in a meeting of F1's Strategy Group on Wednesday, where it is hoped agreement can be reached on how to move forward.

Brown, who is executive director of McLaren, says that all teams support the quest to improve safety, but any change should not be a turn off in making the cars look worse.

"I think it is a tricky one," said Brown. "Does everyone want more safety? Yes. Do people want something that doesn't look right? No. But what you have got to do is make sure it works.

"I am not surprised that this [Shield] screen that is quite curved doesn't look right – I don't know what he saw, but he said he got dizzy. You don't want any distortion. You want it to look like there is no window in front of you, so I don't know want they do.

"We have to land on something that works. 'Dizzy' is not a good place to be after one lap."

The FIA has been clear that if the Shield does not get approved for use in 2018 then the Halo will be introduced instead, with a decision expected to be made over the next few weeks.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner, who is not in favour of the Halo, thinks that it unlikely the Shield can be ready in time.

"Based on the comments I have read from Sebastian, it didn't sound to be too popular," he said.

"So it feels immature in its concept at the moment to introduce for next year, so I am sure it will be discussed at the Strategy Group."

When asked when teams needed to know what was happening so as not to impact their work on 2018, Horner said: "About two months ago.

"These things take a bit of time to get on top of for a big team like Red Bull Racing, so I can only imagine the difficulty that it will take for a lesser equipped team."