Open-wheel cockpit protection became an urgent priority for global motorsport authorities following several high-profile incidents in the 2000s and 2010s. In Formula One, the FIA developed and mandated the halo — a curved titanium bar attached at three points to the chassis — starting with the 2018 season. The halo was subsequently adopted by Formula 2, Formula 3, Formula E, and other FIA-sanctioned open-wheel categories.
IndyCar faced its own reckoning with debris-related fatalities and serious injuries. Justin Wilson died in August 2015 at Pocono Raceway after being struck on the helmet by a large piece of nose cone debris from another car, an incident that accelerated efforts within the series to find a workable head protection solution.
Rather than adopting the bare halo structure used in FIA categories, IndyCar pursued a hybrid design. Red Bull Advanced Technologies, the engineering arm of the Formula One team, had previously developed a fully transparent canopy concept called the Aeroscreen as an alternative to the halo. While the FIA did not pursue this design for Formula One, IndyCar adapted the concept by using the halo's titanium structural frame as a basis and mounting a curved, tinted polycarbonate screen inside it.
The resulting system provides protection from large debris objects while also serving an aerodynamic function. The screen is framed by titanium, with additional structural connections to the chassis. Unlike the FIA's halo alone, the IndyCar Aeroscreen includes a tear-off strip mechanism to allow drivers to clear the screen during races and an air circulation system to prevent fogging and overheating inside the enclosed cockpit area.
The Aeroscreen added approximately 17 kilograms to the Dallara DW12 chassis, the spec car used by the IndyCar Series. Engineers reconfigured ballast placement to compensate for the weight addition.
IndyCar announced the Aeroscreen as mandatory for all competitors beginning with the 2020 season. The device was integrated into the existing Dallara DW12 chassis package through a retrofit process managed at the factory level. All competing teams received the updated chassis configuration ahead of the season opener.
The development program involved testing sessions at several venues to evaluate the screen's optical clarity, structural performance under load, and thermal management under race conditions. Concerns early in development centered on the potential for distorted driver vision caused by the curved polycarbonate surface, a problem that had derailed the FIA's own Shield experiment — a transparent visor tested briefly by Sebastian Vettel at the 2017 British Grand Prix — but IndyCar and Red Bull Advanced Technologies reported that the material and curvature specifications resolved this issue satisfactorily.
The Aeroscreen demonstrated its protective value in several incidents after its introduction. At the 2023 Indianapolis 500, Kyle Kirkwood's car flipped and slid along the track surface after a tyre contact with Felix Rosenqvist. Video footage showed the Aeroscreen preventing direct contact between Kirkwood's helmet and the track surface as the car slid inverted. Kirkwood was uninjured.
The IndyCar Aeroscreen and the Formula One halo represent parallel but distinct engineering responses to the same problem: protecting open-wheel drivers from large, airborne debris in a series environment where fully enclosed cockpits would represent a fundamental change to the sport's character. The halo approach prioritises structural simplicity and unobstructed egress, while the Aeroscreen attempts to combine structural protection with a transparent barrier against smaller debris items.
Both systems emerged from a decade-long industry debate about how far cockpit protection should extend before open-wheel racing ceased to be meaningfully open. The adoption of either system was controversial at various points, but incidents in which the halo and Aeroscreen visibly prevented serious injury progressively shifted driver and public opinion in favour of the devices.