No reason to ban F1's T-wings, says Steiner

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said in Bahrain they should be banned on the grounds both of safety and cost after a T-wing shed by Valtteri Bottas's Mercedes during Friday's second free practice session damaged Max Verstappen's floor.

But with F1 set to discuss a possible immediate ban of the T-wings on safety grounds in Friday's technical regulations meeting, Steiner insists it's down to individual teams to ensure their designs are strong enough.

Mercedes did race its T-wing in Bahrain, but only after strengthening it and convincing the FIA that there would not be another repeat of the failure.

"There were parts lost before [from cars] and the FIA has to sort out with Mercedes that they fix their problem," said Steiner when asked by Motorsport.com about the calls for a ban.

"I have nothing to say about them because I have no idea why it failed, so they have to explain that to the FIA, then the FIA will take a decision.

"We could say this about every part. How many people lost a wing? We were among them last year and we didn't ban front wings, we fixed them.

"Last year, Toro Rosso had a few issues with the wheel rims, but they didn't ban the use of rims, they fixed them.

"It's the same. Just because it's a T-wing and somebody says they don't like them doesn't [mean] we need to take them off."

Steiner also pointed out that when Haas was told to remove its T-wing after first free practice for the Australian Grand Prix , it had never suffered a failure like the one Mercedes suffered in practice in Bahrain or during Saturday practice in China last week.

The team achieved this in the short term by gluing a carbon fibre strip to either side of the shark fin engine cover, which minimised the vibration that was being transferred to the T-wing and it reappeared on the car on Saturday.

The Mercedes T-wing Bottas lost differs from that of Haas in that it is mounted independently of the shark fin.

"We didn't lose it [our T-wing], we were asked to stiffen it up and we were not afraid, it was never a safety risk" said Steiner.

"They [the FIA] didn't like how it bent, so we had to stiffen up the fin more than the T-wing."