F1: Verstappen thinks F1 should eliminate Sausage Curbs

F1 World Driving Champion Max Verstappen believes that Sausage Curbs are incompatible with today’s F1 cars.

They cause both accidents and crashes and there are better ways to keep drivers from exceeding track limits – race officials can visually monitor track limit violations and issue warnings followed by penalties.

Max Verstappen told Viaplay:

“The angle of the curb and the shape of it is also wrong for the current cars, because every time we all run and slide on it. If you bottom out because of the car being so close to the ground, you can have a big off.”

During the qualifying session at the 2022 F1 Saudi Arabian GP, Mick Schumacher went through a scary crash after going onto the sausage curb at Turn 10, losing control, and hitting the wall with a huge impact. The German, however, was safe. Since the entire Saudi Arabia track is taken at extremely high speed, small issues like this can turn out to be fatal for the drivers because of the high risk involved.

Max Verstappen used this example to further justify his statement, saying:

“The point where Schumacher hit the wall there was no Tecpro [barrier] to slow the car, and he went straight into concrete, which is not good. There are a few little things that we can improve, as sometimes they forget about the little things – but the angles of walls for sure [is important].”

While the barrier was an issue, the crash originated when Schumacher hit the Sausage Curb.