Christian Horner - Gravel a better 'long-term' solution to F1 track limits woes

Red Bull in the gravel — Photo: © LAT Images

French Grand Prix

Horner - Gravel a better 'long-term' solution to F1 track limits woes

Track limits and their policing is again a topic of debate in France

Sam Hall

Sunday 20 June 2021 13:15 Updated: 11:45

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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner is confident gravel traps offer a better 'long-term' solution for F1 in policing track limits than the sausage kerbs seen this weekend at Paul Ricard.

Championship contenders Mercedes and Red Bull both made their feelings known to FIA race director Michael Masi after Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen ran wide onto the harsh kerbs during Friday practice, claiming the damage caused would lead to costs of tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds.

F1 has been eager to find a solution to end the abuse of track limits for a number of years and Horner suggested the answer lies in the sport's past.

“Gravel is probably a better longer-term way to go that there is a physical penalty other than just smashing up the front wing which in a cost-cap world is very expensive," said Horner.

He added: “I think it is important to find a balance. The problem is the way the kerbs are laid out. They’re not immediately visible to the drivers so it is sort of inviting you to go there.

"It would just be nice if we could find something that didn’t do quite as much damage to the car, that there was a time penalty."

Triple-header "hungry for front wings"

With the French Grand Prix, F1 enters its first of four scheduled triple-headers. With a cost cap in place for the first time in the history of the sport, teams are unable to build the huge reserves of parts seen in years gone by, meaning damage carries a heavier price than in the past.

“It is very tough because the consumption of parts is high," added Horner. "We are not running big stock levels because of the cap so it is a balancing act continually and three races on the trot that are hungry for front wings.

"We didn’t come out of Baku particularly flush with them following the failure in the race and Max’s incident on the Saturday morning.”