Formula One’s official tyre supplier Pirelli were under the spotlight again following the Austrian Grand Prix.
The early part of the race at the Red Bull Ring, was one of pushing the tyres as far as they could go in a bid to complete a one-stop strategy.
Perhaps it was down to the cooler conditions, but both Lewis Hamilton for Mercedes on the ultra-soft purple tyres and Sebastian Vettel for Ferrari on the red striped super-soft compound were able to go much further than initially anticipated.
But unfortunately for four-time F1 champ Vettel, he suffered a high speed tyre blow out, which ended his Grand Prix weekend.
The German was perplexed by the incident, which happened with no prior warning and such no way to avoid it from happening.
?Complete question mark why the tyre failed, It was our decision [to do a long run], it was clear that everybody had much more tyre life than expected going into the race. Vettel told motorsport.com.
?After all, 27 laps is not that much on that compound. Kimi did more than 20 laps on the ultrasoft, there was other people who went longer on the supersoft.
?Out of nothing, the tyre exploded. No signs before that, everything was normal according to the guys on the pitwall, no change in pace from the lap before.
?No signs for the failure. I didn?t go off anywhere.’
It’s another warning sign for Pirelli, who have in the past been heavily criticised following unexpected tyre blow-outs, none more so than at Silverstone for the 2013 British Grand Prix.
The next race for 2016? The British Grand Prix.
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