FIA reject tyre change plan

Formula One’s governing body the FIA has blocked proposals put forward by Pirelli to change the tyres used by the teams this season.

The current tyre compounds that all the teams are supplied with by Formula One’s official tyre manufacturer Pirelli, have received fierce criticism this season.

Pirelli’s brief since returning to the sport has been to create different problems for the teams and to engineer tyre strategy back into Formula One. In previous years this at times has itself been controversial, with quite a few grumbles and complaints up and down the pit-lane. But that was nothing in comparison to this season.

So following the Spanish Grand Prix, Pirelli announced that it was their intention to change the compounds from Canada onwards, to the delight of some teams and to the dismay of others who thought changing the tyres mid-season was testament to moving the goalposts at half time.

‘There aren’t many sports where there are such fundamental changes to an essential ingredient part-way through a season, Just imagine for a moment that, because a football team can’t run as fast as its opponent, the dimensions of the pitch are changed at half time!’ Lotus boss Eric Boullier told the media and you can see his point. Even if you believe the tyres do need to be changed for the good of Formula One, it’s hardly fair to penalise the team that prepared their car correctly for the tyres they would be using for the season because other teams failed to do so.

It would seem the FIA agree in someway as they have refused any changes to the tyres for this season, other than for safety reasons.

The FIA quoted Article 12.6.3: ‘Tyre specifications will be determined by the FIA no later than 1 September of the previous season. Once determined in this way, the specification of the tyres will not be changed during the championship season without the agreement of all competing teams.’

While an FIA source told Autosport Magazine: ‘Discussions between the FIA and Pirelli are ongoing regarding the tyre failures and making changes to prevent them happening again. These talks do not involve the subject of degradation or the number of pitstops.’

This should see a tweak to the tyres to prevent the failures that we have seen in recent races from rear tyre delaminations, but we will not see any change in the degradation levels which teams such as Mercedes and Red Bull have often struggled with this season.