Formula 1’s official tyre supplier Pirelli has insisted drivers will be able to use its new tyres for 2024 safely without heating blankets.
A vote of F1, the FIA and teams next month will decide whether the championship goes ahead with a ban on tyre warmers for 2024. George Russell tested the latest prototype tyres at the Circuit de Catalunya last week and said afterwards F1 is not ready to commit to banning tyre warmers.“I don’t think we as a sport are at a position yet to bring these tyres into a racing scenario,” Russell commented on Thursday. “I would be very concerned for all the mechanics in the pit lane during a pit stop. I’d be very concerned for the out-lap from a race.
“In cold conditions there will be crashes, I have no doubt about it, and I think there’s a lot of work, expense development going into these tyres I feel like that could be put elsewhere.”
However Pirelli’s chief engineer Simone Berra said the drivers can bring the new tyres up to temperature safely if they treat them differently to the current rubber.
“Drivers need to think about the fact that not using the blankets is different than today,” he said. “So they have to approach the out-lap in a different way. Obviously it could be, in cold conditions, trickier to bring up the temperature for the tyres.”
Berra said the tyres typically need to be treated carefully over the first sector of the lap before they start to perform as normal.
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“I think it’s just a matter of doing the first portion of the lap, the first sector,” he said. “Generally we can see much more difference compared to other sectors. Already sector two and sector three are in line with the lap times with the blankets usage.
“So it’s just a matter of really managing the first few corners, being careful, obviously.”
He insisted there is no increase in risk from using the tyres without blankets. “In terms of safety I don’t see, from the data that I’ve seen, any specific risk,” said Berra.
“You need to change the way you are driving in the first lap, for sure. You have to adapt the driving style even to protect the tyres because you can generate graining even if you push too much in the first corners and the tyres are not up to temperature.
“So I respect a driver’s opinion, that’s for sure, but I think that obviously there will be differences compared to the old products and the old tyre management.”
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Jere (@jerejj)
17th June 2023, 19:04
Indeed a matter of driving technique, which was also the case for drivers in the single-seater categories already operating blanket-freely back when they first stopped using blankets & I also have zero safety concerns generally.
BasCB (@bascb)
17th June 2023, 19:58
Yeah, it’s the same as drivers saying its impossible to keep to the track limits. They just need to approach the outlap more gradually, they have shown they know how to do these kind of things, it’s not really a different skillset than going it slow during an outlap to preserve the softest compounds on warm days, just feel the tyre.
I might mean that undercuts get stronger, and it could be that it will be even more important to plan where the driver comes out again. Also, I can see teams shifting even more towards one stoppers. But those are just part of racing.
MichaelN
17th June 2023, 20:06
So does George Russell and the GPDA he represents think Simone Berra is full of it?
Both of their views can’t be correct at the same time.
As it stands, Berra makes Russell’s theatrical complaints look pretty silly.
SteveP
18th June 2023, 11:35
Well, Berra is claiming the performance is over the bar, but then you have to consider how low a bar it is.
If it was one driver, or two complaining about poor performance and difficulty hitting the narrow window of performance, then we could dismiss it as a team with a car that doesn’t do tyre warm up well, but this is seemingly all the drivers.
Jon
17th June 2023, 20:09
Currently the engines have to have heated fluid pumped through the engines before they run. Can we ban them to. Not for safety.
I want to see these machine run in then years and the equipment to do this is just another barrier to stop it happening
Ajaxn
17th June 2023, 22:43
Can you begin to imagine changing tires under wet conditions in this same situation of qualifying with time running out? Of course, it’s going to lead to more accidents. Accidents = Drama = Entertainment. In that way, you turn a sport into a game of chance. Good luck will figures higher than skill or strategy.
S
18th June 2023, 10:40
Yes, and it can be witnessed right now in every other motorsports category.
It only leads to crashes if drives are reckless and/or incompetent.
And it’s not luck that is the difference between losing control and not. That is a skill of being a racing driver and making constant judgements on the conditions. Overestimation is a voluntary consequence of the game they play.