Vettel mocks Verstappen kerb complaints

Sebastian Vettel has joked that Red Bull needs to make stronger wings if it doesn't want to damage its car on the revised kerbs around the Red Bull Ring as drivers failed to agree with Max Verstappen's view that they are 'dangerous'.

The Dutchman twice damage his car on the new yellow 'sausage' kerbs, which have been installed to deter drivers from using the plentiful run-off around the circuit, the latter incident in FP1 breaking his suspension on the exit of turn five.

Prompting a furious reaction from Verstappen, who said it is 'better to have a wall there', his rivals were rather less sympathetic to his complaints.

"Maybe they need to build stronger front wings," Ferrari's Vettel said. "Then they would stop complaining. I don't know, I haven't been on them and I haven't experienced how harsh they are."

"Well you can't ever call this circuit dangerous when you come from a circuit like Baku," added Jenson Button. "I think the circuits are very different to what we are used to, we can use a lot of the kerbs but it seems to work pretty well. It's a nice change to be able to run over the kerbs, use a lot of the circuit, it makes the circuit very fast and enjoyable to drive and the big sausage kerbs that Max [Verstappen] hit, it broke the car, but it's always going to in that situation."

Even fellow Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo wasn't siding with his team-mate over the matter, agreeing that drivers should adhere to the limits as they are presented to them.

"It's not personal to Max, but I do like that if you make a mistake you can't just continue like it's nothing," he said. "I don't think they're dangerous, I actually think they are quite good. You're going off track and at least you're paying a penalty."

The new kerbs have been installed as a deterrence following numerous 'unpunished' off-track excursions during last year's Austrian event.