Red Bull boss Christian Horner has called on Formula One to ban the "dangerous" T-wings on this year's cars after seeing Max Verstappen damage his car by driving over one during second practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The T-wings are a controversial part of 2017's new regulations and sit on top of the equally unpopular shark fins at the rear of the cars which are running them. In a repeat of China, one fell loose from Valtteri Bottas' Mercedes during FP2 in Bahrain, with the closely-following Verstappen damaging the floor of his Red Bull when he drove over it, prompting £50,000 worth of damage.
Haas also had T-wing trouble in Australia, briefly being told to remove its wobbly design during practice, and Horner thinks the latest incident should be enough to warrant action from the FIA, who can ban something without unanimous agreement if it is down to safety concerns.
"It cost us a few quid today... Several thousand pounds and a lot of downtime," Horner said on the incident after FP2. "I think they should be absolutely banned, get rid of them, illegal, dangerous, all of those things!
"[FIA race director] Charlie [Whiting]'s got that lovely cop-out of 'grounds of safety', so if he wanted to use it he could do."
The Verstappen incident will raise concerns about what would happen if one of the T-wings fell off the car and was airborne when another driver approached, evoking memories of Felipe Massa's life-threatening injuries in 2009 caused by a loose coil striking him in the head. Horner insists his desire to see T-wings banned is to do with safety and not because Red Bull is one of the teams not running one on its car.
When put to him that he's been pushing for their removal since the opener in Australia, he replied: "And before that! I think unfortunately what's happened has happened. I don't think they're going to be banned on that. I don't think Charlie's got that strong an appetite to get rid of them this season.
"It's not just Bottas, we've seen the issue with the Haas and so on. People think it's just sour grapes because we're not running one but it's not that, it does need looking at properly."
He also poked fun at the Strategy Group's reputation for not making decisions, saying F1 might agree at its next meeting to "ban them in time for 2021".