Christian Horner has once again called upon the FIA to ban the use of T-wings after seeing his driver Max Verstappen lose a significant amount of track time after the Dutchman struck the T-wing of Valtteri Bottas’ car after it had broken off his Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team W08 during second practice at the Bahrain International Circuit on Friday.
Verstappen’s car suffered a broken floor after the wing struck his RB13, and Red Bull Team Principal Horner believes there are now grounds to ban the aerodynamic device, especially as it was the second time in as many events that Bottas had lost his T-wing during practice.
But Horner has doubts that anything will be done this season, and expects any such ban on the device to come about ahead of the 2018 season instead.
“I am probably the wrong person to be asking because we don’t have one, so everybody is going to say we want to get rid of it because we don’t have one,” said Horner to Autosport.
“But I think Charlie [Whiting, race director], if he so wished, has the perfect opportunity under the grounds of safety to get rid of them.
“Today it did about £50,000 of damage so I think they should be banned on grounds of safety and cost – it has destroyed the floor and a bargeboard.
“But I feel that they will probably be here for the rest of the year.”