Sausage kerb, Montreal, 2018

FIA not planning to remove sausage kerbs from other circuits after Peroni crash

2019 Italian Grand Prix

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[gmsabu]

The FIA is not planning to remove sausage kerbs from other Formula 1 circuits after the huge crash suffered by Formula 3 drive Alex Peroni when he hit one at Monza.

Several drivers have criticised the kerbs following the crash, which launched Peroni’s car high into the air and on top of a barrier. The kerb was immediately removed and not replaced.

However FIA race director Michael Masi said the crash does not provide an immediate reason for removing sausage kerbs from all the circuits they are used at.

“I don’t think you can generalise in that regard at all to be quite honest,” said Masi. “It was a freak incident, I think is the best way to put it. If you look at it, it was exactly that.

“From our end we’ll continue looking at everything, various solutions, what they are and evolve when we find better things in other, different areas and different circumstances, different corners. Obviously there’s different profiles of corners, different speeds and everything.

“From my understanding I think that’s been there [at Monza for] at least two or three years. It’s one of those freak ones. We’ll look at them generally and go from there.”

Peroni’s crash was “something that we’ve never seen”, said Masi. “The safety department is investigating that side of it. That commenced straight away.

“We’ll see what the results out of that are. As a whole I saw some comments from drivers in various forms and I don’t think any of us ever expected that.”

Masi said initial inspection of the kerb did not support a theory it had worked loose before Peroni hit it. “Not to my knowledge and from everything I’ve seen but we’ll look at everything in forensic detail,” he said.

The next F1 race will be held in Singapore in two weeks’ time. Masi checked the progress of the temporary street circuit’s construction ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix. He said they are not considering removing sausage kerbs from that track following the Monza crash.

“I wouldn’t pre-empt anything like that,” he said. “Let’s remember that all of these circuits have an FIA Grade 1 licence but are all homologated in the manner in which they are, as they are, with all the inherent safety installations, kerbs, installations behind kerbs, whatever it may be. And they’re all inspected in accordance with our rigorous regime.

“So, no, it would be naive to say there would be a knee-jerk to anything like that.”

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25 comments on “FIA not planning to remove sausage kerbs from other circuits after Peroni crash”

  1. Translation: “We won’t do anything until someone is killed”

    Even a blind person can see that those kerbs are dangerous and after so many near misses I’m surprised that they still consider them to be freak accidents.

    1. Have a look at the Peroni accident and you’ll see it’s a freak accident. He was at full speed 2 car width outside the track hitting the line of kerbs from the side.
      What was he doing?

      It’s not surprising that from that angle the kerbs ‘fold’ and create a springboard for the car.
      Luckily FIA mandated the halo saving him from further harm.

    2. I think the danger of sausage kerbs depends entirely on where they are placed, on the inside line to prevent corner cutting or on the exit of a slow speed chicane is acceptable, but exits of high speed corners is absurdly dangerous and I don’t understand how after years of cars being bounced up in the air from these kerbs at much slower corners, someone can then decide to put one on the outside of parabolica.

      1. Even at slower corners they’ve been proved a danger. See Nick Heidfeld in Formula E and Sophia Flörsch in F3.

    3. Exactly read my mind.

  2. In these moments I’m reminded of how large Charlie’s loss is for the sport and for track safety. The sausage kerb placement is clearly wrong and their stance on the matter is surprising.

    1. Let’s ignore then the kerb was there for at least 2 years so Whiting was OK with it, and the fact Masi was personally being trained up by Whiting. I think they’re right not to suddenly change everything because of one incident and to instead look at it carefully and thoughtfully. How is that wrong? Knee jerk reactions are better?

      1. I don’t see how it would be a knee jerk reaction, it’s completely rational to look at the incident and conclude that a sausage kerb placed on the outside of a fast corner is capable of making the car airborne, the whole point of a run off area is to slow a car down before it reaches the barriers. The Peroni incident could have been so much worse, the FIA should be grateful that the issue can be rectified before a driver, marshal or spectator is killed.

        1. Knee jerk is the suggestion to get rid of all sausage kerbs simply because one that was placed poorly caused an incident. The correct course of action, which they are taking, is to review the cause and see if any others pose a danger. Anyway, my point was that stating Charlie’s loss means safety is going downhill is ludicrous since he was in charge when it was placed there to begin with.

          1. I’m sorry I misunderstood your comment, I wasn’t under the impression anyone had suggested getting rid of all sausage kerbs, I intended to make the argument that to get rid of the kerbs where they are an issue (outside of high speed corners) would not be knee jerk as we now know the kerbs are not appropriate for those speeds. But, I agree with you that it would be overkill to get rid of the kerbs on slow corners or the inside line to prevent corner cutting.

          2. I don’t think anyone’s said “get rid of all sausage kerbs”, only ones in places where a car is potentially going to hit it at near max speed (Macau last year should have been example enough).

    2. David is absolutely correct. F1 has many problems. Watkins would have never allowed Peroni to leave that car without being imobilised, let alone hushed into the medical car. Whiting’s loss should have prompt a restructuring of race direction, Masi cannot perform the same job, he has been responsible for half a dozen egregious errors. Finally ever since Mr E left f1, nothing has improved, a lot has been deteriorating but hopefuly things will improve as the new f1 is soon to reach the new set of regs and agreements with teams.

  3. Some heavy object\car flying in the direction of Driver’s head is also a “freak incident”, but it didn’t stop from introducing Halo.

    Get rid of sausage kerbs, before it is too late!

    1. Peroni landed upside down with the HALO right on the tirewall. Without it we would have had another fatality…!

      It would not be that hard to replace the kerbs with something that offers about 50% less grip than tarmac?

      1. It would not be that hard to replace the kerbs with something that offers about 50% less grip than tarmac?

        Gravel – looks good and I over-delivered on your challenge, Bart.

        1. Seconded – What’s the problem with gravel anyway? Why would you put a speed bump on a curve that’s taken at 200kph+ in which case it acts as a ramp?

        2. I meant it as an understatement, not as a challenge :-)

          Not sure about gravel though, not where there’s a fat chance that it ends up sprayed out over the track.

        3. You crack me up :7

  4. something that we’ve never seen

    Weren’t they watching Macau last year?

  5. I think most sausage kerbs are absolutely fine where they are, there are just a few here and there in high-speed areas that I’m sure the FIA will look at.

    Ideally I’d rather they were limited to slow chicanes but given the apparent dislike for plain old grass or gravel, we’re probably stuck with them in more places for now. Until someone finds a way to produce pieces of self-wetting drag strip to lay down, perhaps.

  6. Has there been any information on how the kerb was damaged in the first pace? In the replays of the incident, long before he reaches it you can clearly see a whole section of the kerb is broken and raised in multiple places.

    Any other time, he would have hit the kerb and bounced spectaculary, but only breifly. This time, he literally took off.

  7. It just should be in entire corner perimeter, not just a little one in the middle of corner. But better make a grass line.

  8. Peroni’s crash was “something that we’ve never seen”, said Masi.

    This is obviously not true as Sophia Flörsch crash in Macau was also caused by a kerb. These kind of kerbs and high speed don’t mix, that’s for sure.

  9. Are they daft or just ignoring people. The kerb at parabolica was not only to high but also the wrong spec and maybe worse of all it was bolted the wrong way! It was paralel to the edge of the track!

    1. They never said they weren’t going to remove it or think about other placement, they just said they’re not going to remove all of it a few days after the incident happened without a proper investigation (which they are undertaking).

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