French Grand Prix

Mercedes fuming after "aggressive" kerbs damage W12 in practice one

Sam Hall Friday 18 June 2021 13:18 Updated: 20:20

Mercedes fuming after "aggressive" kerbs damage W12 in practice one

Mercedes delivered a strongly-worded complaint to the FIA after reporting the yellow rumble strips at the Paul Ricard circuit could cause "hundreds of thousands of pound worth of damage" to its cars.

On the exit of turn two is a series of yellow strips intended to deter drivers from going beyond the confines of the track for this weekend's French Grand Prix.

The markers lie beyond the regular red-and-white kerbing and making contact would indicate an abuse of track limits.

After Valtteri Bottas ran over the strips during FP1 and damaged the underneath of his car, Mercedes' team manager Ron Meadows criticised the penalty of an honest mistake.

Reporting the issue to FIA race director Michael Masi, Meadows said: "Those yellow rumble strips on the exit of two have done an awful lot of damage to our car. They're just too aggressive."

In reply, Masi confirmed: "They're the 50-millimetre ones that we normally have in a lot of places Ron."

Unhappy with the response, Meadows retorted: "All I'm telling you is our car is rooted because we went over them and we can't say 'Well, you shouldn't go there' because that's tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage by going three-foot too wide."

Bringing the conversation to a close, Masi said: "It's a bit more than three foot but I'll have a look. Thank you!"

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Mercedes fuming after "aggressive" kerbs damage W12 in practice one

Mercedes fuming after "aggressive" kerbs damage W12 in practice one