Grand Prix Drivers Association chairman Alex Wurz has called on the FIA to continue its efforts to improve drivers' safety in the sport following the two serious incidents that took place last weekend at Silverstone.
Sunday's Britisg Grand Prix race was marked by Zhou Guanyu's horrific upside down joy ride at the start of the British Grand Prix, but a crash earlier in the day between two contenders in the FIA Formula 2 sprint race was equally concerning.
Like many, Wurz noted that the roll hoop on Zhou's Alfa Romeo had collapsed on impact after the Chinese driver's overturned following its contact with the Mercedes of George Russell.
On social media, Wurz said the last time a roll hoop had failed in F1 was over a quarter of a century ago at the European Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in 1999, when Sauber's Pedro Diniz collided with Wurz at the start of the race.
"Last time as far as I remember an F1 roll hub collapsing was with Pedro Diniz, Nurburgring ’99 – jumping over me,” said Wurz wrote on Twitter.
"This led to stricter crash tests, requested by GPDA, swiftly executed [and] implemented by the FIA.
"Dear mister president [please] check your inbox, we got more work to do."
But Wurz was equally concerned by the scary collision at Silverstone on Sunday morning between Dennis Hauger and Roy Nissany, when the former was launched into the air at Vale corner by a sausage kerb and hit the Halo-protected cockpit of the latter.
Both Roy Nissany and Dennis Hauger walked away from this scary incident #BritishGP #F2 pic.twitter.com/URWV64LGQe
— Formula 2 (@Formula2) July 3, 2022
Both F2 chargers emerged unscathed from the crash, but it was a worrying sight caused by the elevated sausage kerb, whose continued presence on tracks Wurz denounces.
In 2019, F3 driver Alex Peroni had been launched in the air after striking a sausage kerb on the run area at Parabolica before landing upside down on the barriers and smashing through the catch fencing.
Unfortunateley, in that incident, the young Australian driver sustained a fractured vertebra and concussion.
Wurz described the sausage kerb as an "ill-born concept" that should have been removed from tracks a long time ago.
"[I] struggle to hold back on speaking out publicly about matter of sausage kerbs," said the former Grand Prix driver.
"Why we have them and why nothing seems to be done.
"Fact: they are, and have always been an ill-born concept. How many more shunts, how much more injuries we have to witness? This goes for sausage kerbs at apex, as well as baguette [or] banana kerbs on exits."
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