Mercedes urges FIA to modify kerbs overnight
Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff hopes that the FIA will react to today's suspension failures in Austria by modifying the kerbs before Sunday's race.
Photo by: XPB Images
Wolff said that the team has been in contact with race director Charlie Whiting about the breakage suffered by Nico Rosberg in FP3.
"I don't know what the FIA is going to decide," said Wolff. "Whether they are going to take those sausage kerbs away, or whether they are going to modify some of the red kerbs, scratch them, or fill them with concrete.
"I don't know. But we have seen a couple of failures on various cars with the various suspension design, and it still failed, I think there needs to be a reaction.
"There is some discussion happening. We discussed it during the session that we need to react quickly, with Charlie, and trigger some reaction. But that is not an easy one."
Wolff stressed that Rosberg's failure was caused by the red kerbs at the end of the track, and not the yellow sausage kerbs which are further off line, and which are supposed to act as a deterrent.
"It is a concern. The strange thing is at the beginning it seemed we had spikes of loads. But once we analysed the data there was not much load on the suspension.
"So it is some kind of strange frequency or oscillation on the tyre that makes the suspension break. And we don't know what it is. It looks like it's the red kerbs, which are new, which triggers that."
Before qualifying, Mercedes reinforced its rear wishbones with extra carbon layers. Other teams with concerns will not be able to make such a change without dropping out of parc ferme.
"We strengthened the suspension. Whether it's the ultimate cure, I doubt it. I think with the parc ferme rules we are probably on the better side because we strengthened them already."
Rosberg admitted that he is still has concerned about the kerbs heading into the race.
"The yellow kerbs, you're not supposed to go there, that's one thing," he said. "People who do, break the car, that's for sure. But what would the alternative be? I don't know.
"The bad one was my incident, because I was in the really normal, shallow kerb, the first one, just driving out of the corner, and the thing failed. That's the bigger worry which needs understanding, I think.
"It's a vibration, a very unusual never seen before vibration, which comes when you're on the throttle when you're on that kerb. So that's a worry, because it's not something that we've planned for building the car, so not straightforward. They reinforced our car before qualifying, in those fragile areas."
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