Former IndyCar President Jay Frye recently came out and reflected on his time as the IndyCar President on the one-year anniversary of his departure from the position. Frye hailed Christian Horner and Red Bull for the aeroscreen development, which was a major safety step in the American open-wheel racing series.
Following the death of Jules Bianchi, all the open wheel racing series around the world started considering options to protect the driver’s head from flying debris, roll overs and barrier impact. F1 came up with Halo, which was tested in 2016 & 2017, before finally becoming mandatory in 2018.
A similar discussion of a safety structure had been going around in IndyCar as well. Jay Frye, who was IndyCar’s President during the time when the idea of aeroscreen came and was developed, in an interview with Motorsport, detailed how Red Bull was crucial to the aeroscreen getting developed in a year’s time.
“We called Red Bull in March of 2019 and then at the COTA Open Test in February of 2020, right before COVID, we had all 26 cars that were participating that had aeroscreens on. Eight months. We completely designed it, engineered it, built it, implemented it in an eight-month period, which is just spectacular,” said Jay Frye
Hailing Red Bull’s former Team Principal Christian Horner and Jonathan Wheatley, along with the other partners who helped develop the aeroscreen and implement i,t which included PPG, Pankl, and Dallara, Jay Frye added,
“The Red Bull guys were amazing, and that was dealing with Jonathan Wheatley, Christian Horner. From the Pankl guys, the PPG guys, to our guys, to Dallara, to the teams, that was a monumental thing to get done as quickly as we got it done, and that’s something we should all be proud of.”
“Once we started having it on all the cars, it was a total driver cockpit safety solution. The drivers and their safety meant more to me than anything. That was something that I thought was a game-changer for the sport.”
Jay Frye detailed how aeroscreen helped IndyCar grow
Many top F1 drivers, including Max Verstappen, recently came out and detailed the risk of racing in IndyCar, specifically the Indy 500. Jay Frye, in the interview, detailed how aeroscreens made the sport safer, which made drivers like Jimmie Johnson and Romain Grosjean race in the American open wheel racing series.
“As you look at it, Jimmie Johnson and other people that came into the sport, Romain Grosjean, there were drivers that came in after that was implemented that might not have if we didn’t have it on the car. So I think that was something that was a good thing actually to help grow the sport,” said Jay Frye
There was skepticism around the aeroscreen and Halo when it was first introduced, with fans worrying it would take away from the open cockpit nature of the sport, but it was soon accepted as it saved drivers from serious injuries, including Romain Grosjean in the fireball crash at the 2020 Bahrain GP.
Edited by Pranay Bhagi
