Top drivers call for urgent removal of sausage kerbs: 'We've seen too many crashes'

F1

After a series of violent crashes where sausage kerbs have launched cars in to the air, growing numbers of drivers are saying that there is no place for them in modern racing

A-screengrab-of-Enrique-Chaves's-Aston-Martin-Vantage-flying-through-the-air-at-the-Six-Hours-of-Monza-after-hitting-a-susage-kerb

Chaves was lucky to walk away from his huge crash at Monza after being launched off the sausage kerbs

WEC

Author

James Elson

Have sausage kerbs reached the end of the road? Increasing numbers of drivers are calling for the immediate removal of the trackside ridges, responsible for several heavy crashes where cars have been launched into the air.

Last weekend brought another dramatic example when Henrique Chaves ran onto a kerb in the 6 Hours of Monza, which flipped his Aston Martin Vantage at high speed.

Endurance veteran Alex Brundle, who was competing in the same race, said that driver safety could not meet reasonable expectations while sausage kerbs were installed. The 2014 WEC champion Anthony Davidson says he believes racing “dodged a bullet” when the driver emerged unscathed.

The kerbs are fitted in a bid to prevent drivers from cutting corners, but present an unforgiving ramp when drivers run wide or slide out of control.

Chaves’s violent shunt began when he lost control of his car, approaching the Della Roggia chicane. Hitting the sausage kerb sideways, it ripped off the Vantage’s passenger-side door before sending it barrel-rolling through the air.

As images of the crash circulated on social media, there was anger from some drivers that the kerbs are still being used after long-running criticism. McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris joined the outcry in his Telegraph column.

“We need to act because when these cars hit these kerbs, you do not ride them,” he wrote. “You can be launched into the air. Cars can pop up, do big wheelies and then slam back down again, which can be very painful on the back.

“Chaves’s crash last weekend is a reminder that we cannot let this drag on. Issues such as sausage kerbs are, in my eyes at least, a critical topic that we need to sort out sooner rather than later.”

The latest incident came one week after F2 driver Dennis Hauger had seen his car launched onto Roy Nissany’s by a sausage kerb at Silverstone. Last year, W Series driver Abbie Eaton suffered a serious spine injury in when running over one at the Circuit of the Americas and Alex Peroni saw his F3 car sent flying into the catch fence at Monza in 2019.

“We’ve just seen too many of these now’” says Brundle, who was driving at Monza for the Inter Europol team in LMP2 and saw the accident from the team garage. “Particularly in single-seaters, but in all different types of car.

“You can see an instant fracture of the spine in that kind of moment” Anthony Davidson

“I found myself thinking, ‘I’ve not heard the flip side of the argument as to why those curves need to be there’ – that was my main thought.

“The feedback to organisers of the championships and circuits has been so universal that I’m surprised, given the nature and number of accidents we’ve had, that something’s not yet been done.

“It only took two or three instances of drivers being struck by items coming into the cockpit – admittedly over a number of years – for engineers to come up with the halo, which is now generally accepted to be a step forward in terms of driver safety.

“I’d either like to see the removal of the kerbs or hear the alternative argument – in relatively short order.”

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Davidson highlighted the violence of the Monza crash, and the threat that the kerbs pose to drivers.

“The actual impact of the sausage kerb was enough to break the door off and obliterate the right-hand side of the car,” he says.

“When you think of the impact it takes to do that to a racing car, you only have to imagine what the force would have been like on the driver. You can see an instant fracture of the spine in that kind of moment.

“I think Chavez was very lucky to walk away from that one and that many people dodged a bullet that day, I really do.”

Davidson believes that the kerbs also contribute to more aggressive racing because most drivers are able to run over them and continue.

“At Monza we see so many cars now barrel in there side-by-side,” he says. “The driver on the outside is more than happy to give it a go to try and hang on round the outside, and the driver on the inside is more than happy just to squeeze the other driver out of road.

“There’s no respect – I hate that kind of racing, it ruins it.”

WEC-LMP2-driver-Anthony-Davidson-watches-the-timing-screens-in-the-pits-at-the-Six-Hours-of-Monza

Brundle says the accident made for uncomfortable viewing from the garage

Joao Filipe / DPPI

He believes that gravel traps are a much better alternative because drivers are naturally more cautious of running off and becoming stuck. In the event of the crash, they also dissipate more energy, says Davidson, although they can still cause cars to roll and aren’t always suitable for MotoGP.

Brundle is also an advocate for more gravel: “I think they do the best of a bad job realistically, slowing the cars if they go off circuit, and preventing cars that have had a failure from just careering into the barriers.

“Grass and gravel generate a physical deterrent, and then it’s down to the drivers to keep the cars in between the white lines – I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”

One alternative being pursued is a new design of sausage kerb that’s less likely to launch wayward cars. Circuit designer Jarno Zaffelli, whose Dromo firm oversaw a redesign of the Della Roggia chicane at Monza, says that they have their place to enforce track limits where asphalt run-off is required.

“When we helped redesign the Della Roggia chicane at Monza, we were asked to put in sausage kerbs because many drivers were cutting the corner, using the asphalt run-off which had been requested [by the FIA instead of gravel traps on safety grounds],” he says.

“Should we have less run-off [and more gravel traps]? We are currently designing sausage kerbs which are smoother, so as not to create a very steep bump, but it’s [still possible to see a car] flying – it’s very difficult.”

Gravel traps were largely phased out at corner edges due to worries of cars digging in and flipping over – this was demonstrated at the very same Monza chicane as Chaves’s accident 30 years previous when Yannick Dalmas spun his Peugeot 905, which ended up on its roof.

Zaffelli emphasises that all circuit design is a compromise, using Zhou Guanyu’s escape from his violent accident at the British GP as an example.

“The speed that Zhou arrived into the barrier, though not inconsiderable, was not that great,” he observes. “The car had been slowed by the carbon fibre digging into the gravel, the asphalt before it hadn’t done much.

“If the driver is in control when going off, it’s better to have asphalt run-off – if they aren’t, gravel is better. Every crash is different, it’s always about compromise.”

HOCKENHEIM, GERMANY - JULY 24: Former F1 driver Anthony Davidson commentates for the BBC before qualifying for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheimring on July 24, 2010 in Hockenheim, Germany. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

Davidson, Brundle and Norris all feel change must happen now

Mark Thompson/Getty Images

However, Brundle thinks as long as current circuit design trends remain largely the same, then drivers are largely at risk.

“I know Abbie Eaton well, and was really upset to see her injuries,” he says. “And what struck me most about hers is that she didn’t drop it, nothing failed on the car. She was just racing, was pushed wide and ended up in a neck brace. That’s not good enough, is it?

“I get it, things fail in race cars, my dad limps because he hit several walls in a race car in Dallas – motor sport is dangerous, it says it on the ticket.

“But we as competitors have a broad acceptance if we’re racing hard but staying in between the lines and don’t do anything outrageous, that we’re going to walk in our front door at the end of the race weekend.

“With these items on track that likelihood [of drivers coming to harm] is always there.”

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