No turning back on the tires

Every year, it’s the same: some teams find themselves disadvantaged by the tires they can’t get to work. As a result, it’s an all-hands-on-deck situation in the paddock with some teams requesting changes while others definitely don’t want to change a situation that works in their favor.

In order to reach a consensus, the governing bodies then convene an emergency meeting during a race weekend and teams are asked to vote. This happened once again this weekend with a meeting gathering the ten teams, the FIA, and the FOM. The result? 5 teams voted for the status quo and 5 others for a change. As the regulations only allow for a change if there are 7 votes in favor, the status quo prevails.

In the middle, Pirelli finds itself counting points and once again must justify the performance of the tires that are in line with the guidelines imposed by F1, as reminded by Mario Isola, their head of competition: « We made the product in line with the requests coming from F1. Do not forget what happened last year: the drivers were complaining about overheating. If we go back to the 2018 tires, we return to overheating, blistering, and all those things we worked on to make a better tire this year. »

Instead of moving backward, it is perhaps towards anticipating the future that we are heading since Toto Wolff mentioned the possibility of testing the 2020 tires at the end of the current season, which is allowed by the current regulations: « We can provide two additional sets of tires to evaluate them on Friday. There have also been discussions to slightly change the regulations to see if these different tires can be used throughout the weekend and not just in free practice. »

If teams enjoy debating over the products offered by the Italian manufacturer, none of them wish to return to the tire war that once pitted Michelin against Bridgestone, as it led to an escalation in costs that no one wants in the paddock.

From our special correspondent in Spielberg