Tire Flap

[Ruslan 0]

Well, it appears that F1 has wondered into another controversy with Pirelli making changes to the tires for some races that favor one competitor. I pulled up a couple of older articles on the subject from April, as I missed this at the time:

https://www.thisisf1.com/2018/04/07/pirelli-tweaks-2018-f1-tyres-after-mercedes-request/

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/headlines/2018/4/pirelli-reduces-tread-depth-for-barcelona--silverstone---paul-ri.html

According to the first article, Mercedes requested a change to the tire after blistering in Barcelona testing and even recommended to Pirelli that the solution might be to reduce the thickness of the rubber layer on circuits like Barcelona. The article has Pirelli stating that they would have done it anyway. The rule was implemented by the emergency safety argument, not with agreement of 70 percent of the teams. The circuits that are going to use the thinner tires are Barcelona, Silverstone and Paul Ricard.

The second article is less judgmental and presents Pirelli's decision as a matter of course and usual procedure, and points out that they also did this in 2011 and 2012 for the Belgian and Italian Grand Prixs.

[Ruslan 0]

Well, I guess the tire flap is over:

https://www.gpguide.com/news.aspx?articleid=MXwwNS8xNi8yMDE4IDAwOjAwOjAwfFBpcmVsbGkgcmlnaHQgdG8gdHdlYWsgdHlyZXMgZm9yIEJhcmNlbG9uYSAtIFZldHRlbA

Article quotes Vettel as saying: "If we had used those (old tires at the grand prix) it would have been worse. They blistered very seriously and could have caused serious problems....It was right to bring the thinner tread."

Decent of him to put this issue to rest, unlike say Helmet Marko, who seems to go out of his way to mess with Mercedes.