Haas team principal Guenther Steiner wants F1 to commit to using the new tyres Pirelli has produced for next year.
Drivers gave a largely negative assessment of Pirelli’s prototype rubber for the 2020 F1 season after testing it during practice for the United States Grand Prix. The teams have another opportunity to test next year’s tyres in this week’s post-season test at Yas Marina.However Steiner said “nobody likes” the current tyres and believes the sport will be better off changing them.
“We all agree that the tyre this year wasn’t good,” he said. “There was a lot of complaints even [from] spectators on TV that this is way off.
“‘Who can get a tyre to work?’, ‘My tyre is too hot’, ‘I have to lift and coast because the tyre overheats’. We are unhappy with that.”
“I don’t know what the new one is [like],” he added, “[but] if the new one is better, but just marginal, then go for the new one because we didn’t like this one. The new one needs to be really bad, to not take that one.”
[icon2019autocoursempu]Pirelli said the cold conditions when the tyres were run at Circuit of the Americas made the test unrepresentative, which Steiner agrees with.
“I think it’s the first time we really can get something out of these tyres. I was one of the few which, after Austin, said we cannot jump to conclusions after this first practice test.
“I’m not saying that the tyre is good, by no means, but what I say is we don’t know. After Austin we don’t know. The temperature was too low, whe cars were not prepared for it. It looks like we have too high pressures so there was a lot of things if you think about it.
“We need to give it a fair shot with the comparison to the current tyre and then I think we can look at data and come to a conclusion which would give us the real result and then we have to see do we want this tyre to be the tyre for the future or do we rather stay with the old one.”
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Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
3rd December 2019, 7:18
We’re talking about Pirelli here. If anyone can produce a worse tyre than their 2019 version it’s them!
But first, lower those pressures (for the test only) so the teams sign off on these great new tyres! (not to be used on cold-ish days, to be used in competition with silly high pressures only, on safety grounds off course)
Tomcat173 (@tomcat173)
3rd December 2019, 9:53
@proesterchen agree, but Pirelli also get the short end of the stick with so little tyre testing allowed these days.
Remember the good old days when we had the tyre war, and all the teams would spend days making tyres better and better, tailoring them exactly to their liking? The manufacturer that had more teams signed up also had an advantage because they could accumulate even more kms in the same amount of time. The tyres were brilliant, but the racing wasn’t always better.
MEGATRON M12 (@megatron)
3rd December 2019, 14:29
@tomcat173
Pirelli already have the opportunity to test tires in EVERY fp1 and fp2 during the season but rarely take advantage of it, only doing so at cota. They have more testing opportunity than they take advantage of.
Patrick (@paeschli)
3rd December 2019, 7:33
Really would like to participate in this pot-season test too! I hope whe cars are ready for it!
DAllein (@)
3rd December 2019, 10:30
Oh, Guenther, they will be even worse!
DAllein (@)
3rd December 2019, 10:32
Man, I do miss Tyre Wars.
Maybe it was not economical, but Manufacturers couldn’t just produce crap for years and hope to get away with it.
If I could stop all changes in F1 and change just a single thing, which would have definitely improved racing, – I would have kicked Pirelli out.
dan
3rd December 2019, 18:43
@dallein God please know imagine one of the top teams this year having a diff tyre and having a second advantage in the tyres. Which could easily happen, this is a level playing field for the top 3 teams atleast. And it would just be luck whoever gets a better tyre made. Could you imagine giving Merc another second with different tryes. Or Ferrari crazy engine advantage and a tyre advanatge meaning they walk every race and qually? No thank you.
Aleš Norský (@gpfacts)
3rd December 2019, 11:58
I am kind of looking forward to see the tyre performance on that high banking at Zandvoort…could 2005 USGP Déjà-vu be in the cards?
Antonius Rock (@antoniusrock)
3rd December 2019, 14:40
Pirelli are not fit for purpose, their tyres are an abomination and won’t get any better next year. No competition, no reason to make the product better and these tyres really are as low as you can sink.