The sausage kerb added to the exit of the penultimate corner of the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 circuit is being revised after complaints following Friday practice.
A long, 50mm high kerb was added between Yas Marina’s final two corners ahead of this year’s grand prix.
However, it was labelled not “F1 standard” by Haas driver Romain Grosjean after it started to break up during practice and caused several cars to skate along the top if a driver ran wide.
Track workers started to re-profile the kerb to make it less aggressive on Friday night after concerns were discussed during drivers’ briefing.
Racing Point Force India driver Esteban Ocon said it was “not good quality in the way it was made on top”.
“It should be better for tomorrow,” he said. “[But it] doesn’t need to be as high as it is.
“You probably can lose time being on it and lose some load etc., but the problem is now if we go on it and break everything – so it could be dangerous.”
Toro Rosso’s Brendon Hartley is a fan of the kerb but admitted it was “pretty aggressive”.
“You have to give the entry more respect,” he said. “I’m all for it. Maybe it’s potentially a bit high, especially if you go over it and you’re effectively a passenger.
“We have to make sure cars aren’t getting damaged unnecessarily for going off in a small way.”
Hartley’s teammate Pierre Gasly backed up GPDA director Grosjean’s comments earlier in the weekend that F1 needed to revisit sausage kerbs entirely following Sophia Floersch’s terrifying Macau Grand Prix crash last week.
“We also discussed the crash that happened in Macau,” said Gasly of the drivers’ briefing discussion over the Turn 20 kerb.
“In that case the sausage kerb didn’t help because it just airborned the car.
“We should look at different options than sausage kerbs. It’s the same at other tracks, you start sliding and hit one of these kerbs and start flying more than anything else.
“It stops you from going off track but in certain situations can make things quite unsafe.”
Work performed on the kerbs at night after Friday practice 2
Photo by: Jon Noble
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