The FIA has received at least one rival bid to current Formula 1 tyre supplier Pirelli to become the championship’s official provider from 2020.
FIA president Jean Todt confirmed to media that multiple responses have been received to the FIA’s tender for a 2020-23 official F1 tyre supplier.
“The ending of the tender was last night, midnight,” said Todt. “I don’t have the result yet of who has been applying for the tender. I know it’s more than one.”Yesterday Michelin confirmed it had not submitted a tender as it did not agree with F1’s targets for high tyre degradation or the request to supply 13-inch tyres for 2020 before switching to 18-inch rubber from 2021.
Pirelli sporting director Mario Isola described the technical brief for the tyre supply as “challenging”.
“It is complicated because there are a lot of details in terms of not only degradation. There is a lot about working range there is a lot about peak of performance or stiffness characteristics of the tyres.”
The FIA will inform bidders by September 14th whether they are considered eligible. After that F1’s commercial rights holder will discuss terms with the bidders and select the supplier.
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StefMeister (@stefmeister)
1st September 2018, 13:06
Michelin aren’t the only one’s that don’t agree with the High-deg nonsense.
I’d much rather they go back to just letting whoever is supplying the tyres make the best tyres they are able to. Tyres that don’t need quite so much management, That have a better operating range, Allow drivers to push harder through a stint & which offer the best possible performance.
JohnH (@johnrkh)
1st September 2018, 14:07
+ 1 on that, let them race.
Nathan Builder (@nathanbuilder)
1st September 2018, 17:00
Yeah, go back to the one set of tires per race rule! Then we’d see the real spectacle!
RogerA
1st September 2018, 16:11
this 10,000,000,000,000%!
Jere (@jerejj)
1st September 2018, 13:07
Hankook apparently is one of them.
Nitzo (@webtel)
1st September 2018, 13:24
@jerejj
Rhymes with gobbledygook. !!
Just read about them. 7th largest in the world…sponsors Real Madrid and Dortmund..already have a minor presence in motor sports. Am looking forward to a new supplier.
Nitzo (@webtel)
1st September 2018, 13:26
And its South Korean. Korean GP anyone ? Alonso won there once upon a time…
BJ (@beejis60)
1st September 2018, 19:27
@jerejj hankook was apparently a tender bidder around the time pirelli was bidding or perhaps around the time when pirelli was looking to renew its first contract. I forget exactly which.
Kribana (@krichelle)
1st September 2018, 13:10
Alright. We have Mercedes vs Ferrari and now we might have a possible tyre war. BRING IT ON.
Robbie (@robbie)
1st September 2018, 13:24
Why is it a ‘war’? Why do we only ever call the competition amongst tire makers a war when the competition amongst car makers, engine makers, and drivers etc is called just that, a competition, or a race…even a fight, or a battle…but never a war?
Panagiotis Papatheodorou (@panagiotism-papatheodorou)
1st September 2018, 13:36
Perhaps to add a little drama to the whole thing?
Kribana (@krichelle)
1st September 2018, 13:36
Cause wars in sports bring much more attention and it is more dramatic.
Kribana (@krichelle)
1st September 2018, 13:38
Of course, we do not want anyone injured or hurt physically through violence…
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
1st September 2018, 14:51
@krichelle
The FIA is appointing a single tyre supplier, there won’t be a tyre war.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
1st September 2018, 15:13
Bidding war, then? :-) Contracts and proposals being tossed around. With the loser being the one with the most papercuts.
NS Biker (@rekibsn)
1st September 2018, 17:35
Rock, Paper, Scissors. Problem solved, best 3 of 5.
Looking forward to the instant replays, the pre-competition build-up and the commentary by the experts making the predictions.
Joao (@johnmilk)
1st September 2018, 13:36
It’s Lurpak
Nin13 (@nin13)
1st September 2018, 13:44
Get back refueling if they want more stops not high degradation tyres.
RogerA
1st September 2018, 16:11
@nin13 yes cause that was great for the racing.. oh wait it wasn’t it made the racing worse.
they should just do away with the obsession of pit stops, if teams want to no-stop then i do not see it as a bad thing. i want to see the cars and the racing on the track rather than in the pit lane.
the focus should be on the track, the incentive in terms of racing/overtaking should be on the race track and not in the pits as it was with refueling and as it has been on occasion with the 2-3 stop tyre races.
back when we didn’t have stops nobody was ever asking for them, in fact i recall many fans were not keen as they began creeping in through the 80s & especially when refueling came in for 1994 which practically everyone (incluidng majority of fans) apart from bernie and ferrari (who’s thirsty v12 engine benefited from refuelling) was against. the obsession with them is just another hangover from the bernie artificially spicing things up obsession days.
give teams and drivers proper racing tyres again, get rid of the artificial gimmicky rules and let them race on track without needing to run different compounds and all of this sillyness.
James (@knewman)
2nd September 2018, 5:11
do you think there would be good competition competition without the strategy element that pit stops introduce? I love the idea of “let them race” but think it’s only practical in a spec series. But I never had the pleasure of watching in the 70s and 80s so I really don’t know.
anon
1st September 2018, 16:37
@nin13, given the concerns raised by fans earlier this season about mechanics being injured in pit stops, it seems perverse to then lobby to reintroduce the one activity – refuelling in a live pit lane – that was the leading cause of pit lane accidents and mechanics getting injured in the past.
James (@knewman)
2nd September 2018, 5:08
why even bother? tire regs are hamstrung by the FIA. its not a progressive area of the sport.