Max Verstappen believes kerbs at the Red Bull Ring are "not designed" for Formula One cars after a number of drivers suffered damage during Friday practice at the Austrian Grand Prix.
The yellow 'baguette' kerbs caused a stir last year when drivers damaged their cars while running wide, most notably Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat, who was launched into the air in qualifying after going over the kerbs and suffering rear suspension failure. In the build up to this year's race, the FIA introduced extra spacing between the kerbs by moving them 3.2 metres apart.
Despite the adjustments, drivers continued to hit trouble over the kerbs on Friday, with Haas' Romain Grosjean coming off worse with a puncture. Meanwhile, Red Bull was forced to change Verstappen's floor during both sessions in Spielberg.
When asked what challenges he faced on Friday, Verstappen replied: "Challenges? The yellow kerbs again -- luckily not too much damage. I think it's a lot of kerb for a Formula One car. The cars are not designed for it. At the beginning of the second practice, one connector was not connected to the brakes, so we had to take the floor off again, and from then on it was actually not too bad. At the end of the day, I did more or less the programme I wanted to do."
Felipe Massa also suffered damage after running wide in the final sector and says the kerbs are a cause for concern, particularly when attempting to return to the track.
"I damaged my car today, so the kerb is definitely not there to damage the car," Massa explained. "It's there for different reasons and definitely I didn't damage my car because I was trying to use too much, I damaged because I just went off and coming back on I just took these wide kerbs and they damaged the car."