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The sausage kerb added to the exit of the penultimate corner of the Yas Marina Formula 1 circuit is being repaired after complaints following Friday practice.
A long, 50mm high kerb was added between the final two corners ahead of this year’s Abu Dhabi 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 repair the kerb on Friday night after concerns were discussed during the drivers’ briefing.
“The kerb is a good idea, there is no more track limits issue,” said Grosjean after FP2 in Abu Dhabi.
“But every time you go on [it] there is a fair bit of dust coming out, so it’s not great. It doesn’t look very F1 standard.”
Max Verstappen drove all the way along the kerb and was unable to steer his car away from it during FP2, while Charles Leclerc bounced over it when he tried to rejoin the circuit at speed.
Verstappen said the higher kerb was an improvement on previous attempts to get drivers to respect track limits at Turn 20.
“I understand why it’s there, and honestly I think it’s also better, because otherwise at one point you start playing with the limits,” he said.
“I went a little bit over it. The wheels were off the ground, you can’t do anything.”
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, 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 team-mate Pierre Gasly backed up GPDA director Grosjean’s comments earlier in the weekend that F1 needed to revisit use of sausage kerbs entirely following Sophia Florsch’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.”