Turn one kerb removal leads to track limits change before race

2021 United States Grand Prix

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Formula 1 drivers have been given new guidance on track limits ahead of today’s United States Grand Prix following an alteration to the kerbs at the first corner.

The orange kerb at the exit of turn one has been removed. Drivers have therefore been told they will have their lap time invalidated if they run wide at that corner.

Similar restrictions are already in force at the exits of turn nine and 19. Drivers will be shown the black and white flag if the run wide a total of three times at any of these corners during the race. All three infractions do not have to occur at the same corner for the driver to be reported.

If a driver commits a further track limits violation after being shown the black-and-white flag they will be reported to the stewards.

This is the second adjustment which had been made to the track limits restrictions at the Circuit of the Americas this weekend. Yesterday drivers were warned not to cut inside the red and white kerb at turn six. However violations at this point on the circuit are not counted towards the ‘three strikes’ which can lead to a sanction.

The removal of the exit kerb at turn one follows an incident in the second W Series race today. Fabienne Wohlwend’s car was launched into the air after she ran over one of the kerbs. Wohlwend continued but later retired from the race with apparent suspension damage.

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2021 United States Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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9 comments on “Turn one kerb removal leads to track limits change before race”

  1. Why are these kerbs still being used anywhere?

    The fact they keep needing to be removed for safety, should highlight the fact that they’re inherently unsafe! It shouldn’t take someone having to be launched from a specific one for action to be taken.

    Madness.

    1. @hawkii Hardly dangerous at slow-speed corners, & COTA has those at several exits. Not a sausage curb, after all.

      1. Try telling that these kerbs are not dangerous to the two drivers in WSeries and F4 who fractured their spine’s going over those kerbs this weekend.

  2. bring back the gravel; cant seeing it being more dangerous than sleeping postmen.

    1. @johns Bahrain has the most effective solution.

      1. Monaco has the best solution.

  3. What’s the point in suddenly removing them this late. Nothing was wrong anyway (neither earlier this weekend nor in previous editions) & several other corner exits also have three small bumps, as does, for example, Paul Ricard’s T2 exit.

    1. They want to see a race between the main contenders so they are creating an artificial four wide first corner exit

  4. Moving the goalposts this close to the race seems to be begging for problems!

Comments are closed.