Jean Todt has told Pirelli to be at a meeting of the Sporting Working Group this week, in order to take measures to avoid a repeat of the tyre problems that were seen at Silverstone. Pirelli has been asked to propose a solution. The FIA’s priority is, obviously, driver safety and a suitable solution is deemed to be needed as soon as possible.
Although Pirelli is taking the brunt of criticism after the British GP, it must be said that the reason that changes were not made to the tyres used at Silverstone was because the teams were unable to agree with one another. Obviously the tyre failures in Silverstone have added fuel to the fire so that there will be more pressure on those who have argued against the change. It is not the moment to play political games. There is a problem that must be solved and everyone should be concentrating on that, and not trying to advantage of the situation.
Alas, in Formula 1 the culture is such that all too often the teams ignore the big picture and concentrate only on their own interests.
joeblogsf1 
Joe, were these failures happening on both compounds, or just the one. Also, are he same compounds to be used next week?
Both.
I guess now changes proposed will be made due to safety issues. I saw a mention that for Nurburgring Pirelli might have to go back to the way the tyres were before changing the bonding (so the tyres just delaminate but the carcass stays intact) before going back to Kevlar for the following races.
In what sense? that they will be more willing to change now?
Pirelli insisted the intended Canada/Silverstone change had NOTHING to do with safety. If they had said the S word, the new tyres would have been used here, for sure.
If I were Pirelli my one-word solution would begin with a “T” and end in “esting”, possibly with the addition of the words “more co-operation” – who’d want the poison chalice of being the sole tyre supplier to F1 at times like this?
It seems that Todt has immediately labelled Pirelli guilty without trial or rational thought.
If you watched the BBC coverage online or on red button you will have seen that the most probable cause of the left tyres failing was that the were cut by the sharp inside edges of the rumble kerbing on turn 4. So what is really needed is for the kerbing to be made safe, not another attack on the tyre supplier.
Lewis did not help matters when he said “We tested tyres much better then this”, whether he meant on Friday or at the teacup test was not clear.
Obviously Wednesday is far too late for the tyres for the German GP to be changed, even if they happen to be in stock (one must ask why they would be in stock anyway)
It seems that politically Pirelli must change the tyres regardless of whether they were the cause of the blowouts or not, BUT they are not allowed to change them, nor are they allowed to test new tyres. I suspect that Todt will force Pirelli to change the tyres on the grounds of safety, but to what?
It will be recalled that Pirelli are still hopping mad at being summoned to the FIA tribunal, this will raise blood pressure in Italy to bursting point.
If it was easy a solution would have been found. The kerbs were unchanged from last year, so one cannot really blame them.
Red Bull maybe need to be a bit more cautious with their public rantings lest they get what they wished for. It would be delicious if a new tyre was introduced and performed well for Merc, Ferrari and Lotus (ok and FI) but did not suit Red Bull.
Tar Wars : May the farce be with you?
What happened to the steel band (which remained intact) seen during previous ‘delaminations’ – did this disintegrate as well?
Is there any chance that Pirelli changed to the kevlar band (kevlar although being extremely strong is very brittle and will explode if it does ‘go’ so I understand) regardless of certain teams saying ‘no’ thereby supposedly blocking the idea?
Kevlar is not brittle. You are thinking of Carbon fibre
F1 experiment with tyres needs to finish, it may give engineers another parameter to play with but this is not F1, exploding tyres is a tad dangerous so hats off to the guys today, to be driving round at those speeds knowing you have a good chance of a tyre failure was commitment in all its meaning……..
Surely the FIA’s own policy has to come into this? The tyres were made how Pirelli were asked to make them. The FIA made their position on in-season testing clear at the hearing last week. If you can’t test your product, how can you ultimately ensure it is fit for purpose? I’m just happy at the moment there were no big accidents as a result of today’s issues, and we’re not having reports of injuries or worse.
I feel really great after the GP this afternoon. Why? When I left work on Friday, I felt a bit stressed as I knew I’d be in for a busy week from tomorrow. I feel a lot better now as I know someone who’s going to be a whole lot busier next week and for a few more weeks to come; the head of Pirelli’s PR Team. I was utterly amazed by the events of today. Companies invest $millions to stand back and allow the world to marvel at their products being tested in the most extreme sporting environment for 90 minutes on a Sunday afternoon in the full glare of the world’s media. Basically, Pirelli had to stand back and watch their product being shredded to pieces for the whole afternoon. I sense that it’ll take some time for them to recover.
Todt to Pirelli: Your tyres are exploding in races
Pirelli to Todt: Sure they are. We told everybody months ago we wanted to assure safety by changing the construction. The teams are a bunch of self-absorbed twits who couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery, so they can’t agree on allowing us to introduce the new specification. In addition, you’ve been wasting all of your time recently in some body called the International Tribunal.
Todt: Hmmmm
Pirelli: Just bear in mind that we are your only tyre supplier. Your move.
As Joe points you, Pirelli have overwhelming and legitimate cover for these failures.
They tried to update the tires. They were prohibited from doing so. The only people the teams have to blame is themselves. This could have been a complete disaster for Pirelli, now it just gives the sport a black eye.
Conversely, if Todt really does want to see the back of Pirelli, this is as much rationale as he’s ever likely to get. If he doesn’t act against them now, he either doesn’t want Pirelli out or hasn’t managed to land a replacement.
That is ridiculous. Those kerbs were there last year and the year before. How come nothing like this happened with the GP2 and GP3 tyres? How come there were 6 tyre failures and all for the F1 tyres.
Joe the consistency of left rear failures only, could this have been something like curbing damage (exposed bolt or something)? Also since we didn’t see this in practice or qualifying, are all the tires the same throughout the race weekend? Would they have been running less pressure on race day as opposed to earlier in the week?
This will be interesting.
You don’t just move one of the biggest motorsport events since 1923 because of a new event that may or may not happen.
Are you aware that Le Mans and the Canadian GP have been on the same day for years and years?
Easy. Stop tinkering with fakery and allow proper tires.
And reduce the size of the number of team members allowed in the box during pitstops. 2.5 second stops are too quick for fans to enjoy beyond a one time “wow”.
‘Thus it is no surprise to hear that Red Bull Racing has been talking up the problem.’
It’s quite disappointing that RBR is the only Team that really cares for the safety of their Drivers.
That is not correct. They are all worried about it, but as no-one knows what caused the problem, so the important thing is to find the fix and play politics later.
I hope they concentrate on a revised spec on Wednesday and not on the question of how to do the most performance testing before the introduction. Pirelli should have all the answers from their infamous Barcelona test.
Gary Anderson did an interesting piece for the BBC on the kerbs at turn four.
From that, I could easily believe an F1 car could rip the inner left rear sidewall if it was bouncing and powering its way out the corner with the inner sidewall impacting on those edges – particularly if the team were using low pressures. Would have thought the drivers would have felt something though. Perhaps driving on-track would help? I wonder if bollards will make a return!
The race did have me on the edge of my seat at times – which was a nice change.
Joe – given the RB cars seem to be performing quite well (despite Vettel’s gearbox issue), how would a change to the tyres now help the team? I can understand if other teams had an advantage over them, but it seems that RB have the most all round package at the moment.
Q:Can the teams truly not see the safety issue? Can they only count points and money? A:yes
Hi Joe, I am just wondering what one of the tire treads would weigh & what would have happened if one of the four had actually hit one of the drivers in the helmet. I do not think this would be a really pretty sight. Just so glad it did not happen. Kimi got the worst of it how lucky was he. I hope they can fix this fast! I guess the supposed safe tires were not safe enough!
All the best!
Iain
One more failure to have a proper race. Heads should roll at the FIA and any F1 apologists in the media. Enough gimmickry already. Long term fans are not fooled or amused dispite the over excited commentary.
WHo do you think decided on the tyre spec? Before you start throwing mud around, you should find out what you are talking about.
I see Red Bull and Ferrari want a tyre test at the Young Drivers Test with race drivers involved, perhaps Mercedes should put themselves forward to carry this out as a base line of data was set up in Barcelona and this would give better results. I believe they aren’t doing anything that week. Doing the other teams a favour really..