Sausage Kerbs Have Caused Another Massive Crash

Sausage kerbs are intended to stop drivers cutting corners or running wide on a racetrack. They’ve generated a lot of criticism because of their tendency to send cars airborne and they arguably cause more dangerous incidents than they’re worth.

Portuguese racing driver Henrique Chaves suffered a massive crash during the 6 Hours of Monza race event on 10 July. Approaching the Variante della Roggia corner, he lost control before hitting a sausage kerb sideways, sending his Aston Martin Vantage AMR racing car airborne before it landed on its roof and continued sliding further down the track.

Chaves thankfully managed to walk away from the crash, and doesn’t appear to have been seriously injured after being checked over by medical personnel. With so many accidents involving sausage kerbs stacking up, perhaps the FIA needs to finally rethink their use on racing circuits…

Just last week F2 drivers Dennis Hauger and Roy Nissany were involved in another nasty crash at Silverstone, made potentially deadly by the sausage kerbs’ tendency to launch cars into the air. Hauger’s car slid off-track and into a sausage kerb causing it to go airborne right on top of Nissany’s car and into the path of the driver’s head – had it not been for the protective halo surrounding the cockpit, he would likely have been killed.

Another incident involved driver Abbie Eaton, who clipped a sausage kerb in the W Series at Circuit of the Americas in 2021. She fractured her spine in two areas because of the severe jolt caused by the kerb and needed to wear a brace for three months.

These are merely a few examples of the danger that sausage kerbs pose, but there are countless other incidents that have been caused or worsened by their implementation. Perhaps it’s time for the FIA to finally rethink the use of sausage kerbs before more racing drivers fall victim?