Pirelli suspects debris led to Silverstone tire failures

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emailBy Chris Medland | 10 hours ago

Pirelli will analyze the tire failures that occurred at the end of the British Grand Prix but suspects debris had a part to play in the dramatic conclusion.

Valtteri Bottas, Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton all suffered punctures in the final three laps at Silverstone, with the first two dropping out of the points from second and fifth respectively. Hamilton managed to limp home on the final lap to secure victory on three wheels, and Pirelli motorsport boss Mario Isola says analysis will take place but notes a front wing failure for Kimi Raikkonen a few laps before could be a contributing factor.

“We are waiting for the tire from parc ferme, so we will investigate what happened in the last few laps,” Isola said. “It’s a bit early now to give you any conclusions — it could be high wear, because for sure tires with 38 laps or more on this circuit are quite worn, but I’m not saying wear is the cause of the issue.

“It can be debris because we had pieces of front wing from Kimi which were on track, but also some other debris. Which is why we want to investigate not only the tires with the failures but all the tires used in the last few laps of the race, to understand if we find any other cuts or any other possible indications of what happened.

“We have the possibility to do some analysis in our laboratories at the track. We don’t have a lot of time to investigate as we have another race in another week, so we have to come to a conclusion as soon as possible. The target is to have something more by Tuesday at the latest, so that is the plan — we will continue our investigation later today and tomorrow. If there is the need to run a test that isn’t possible to do at the track, we will send the tire on our van to Milan.”

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F1 races at Silverstone again next weekend using softer tire compounds — necessitating the need for a quick investigation — but with many teams trying to reach the end of the race after making an early pit stop under the safety car, Isola says the tires were automatically less robust in the closing laps.

“I’m confident we can have some good indication from the laboratories we have here on track. The level of wear is quite high, this is a fact. Looking at the tire from (Romain) Grosjean from the first stint, it was completely worn. I had a look at some tires from the second stint, and the level of wear is close to 100%, so we have to understand if this is the cause of the failure.

“What is clear is that when you have a tire that is completely worn, the protection on the tread is less so if there is a small piece of debris on track, it’s easy to damage the tire. Some chords are visible on the tire, so that’s why I’m saying the level of wear is close to 100%.”

Isola says if it is simply tire wear that caused the failures then reversing the decision to run softer compounds in next weekend’s race will not be the answer.

“There are a number of question marks at the moment, depending on the cause of the issue. We have to react accordingly.

“Each tire has a maximum number of laps, which depends on each car, it depends on setup, level of energy — which is why we cannot say that the limit is the same for everybody — but if the issue is the wear, we don’t fix it with changing to the same compound choice today. We don’t have a harder one; we don’t have any tire which is able to run the entire distance of the race in Silverstone, so we can’t go one step harder.”

British Grand Prix, Pirelli, Formula 1

 

Verstappen’s tire had 50 cuts at final stop

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emailBy Chris Medland | 9 hours ago

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says Max Verstappen’s tire had around 50 cuts in it when he pitted in the closing stages of the British Grand Prix.

Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas suffered a left-front tire failure three laps from the finish of Sunday’s race, promoting Verstappen into a comfortable second place. Red Bull then opted to take a free pit stop for soft tires to get the fastest lap, but Lewis Hamilton’s final-lap puncture meant Verstappen would have overtaken the Mercedes to win if he avoided a similar issue. However, Horner says it was likely Verstappen would also have had a failure, and doesn’t see it as a missed victory opportunity.

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“I don’t know really because the tire that came off the car had about 50 little cuts in it,” Horner said. “It had been through debris, and if we’d have stayed out we could have lost a second position with the same failure as Lewis, Carlos Sainz and Bottas. So it was right on the limit. We’ll be grateful for what we’ve got rather than what we’ve potentially lost.

“You can either look at the glass being half empty or being half full. We benefited from Bottas’ issues, even then they had a faster car today. We very nearly had the same issues ourselves. If Hamilton had had the issue a lap before we’d all be patting ourselves on the back. It’s never good to benefit from others’ misfortune, but I don’t think we can be upset with what happened.”

The end result leaves Verstappen 36 points adrift of Hamilton in the drivers’ championship, and Horner said the retirement in Austria is proving costly.

“That first race is expensive,” he said. “If you remember, at the time he was splitting the two Mercedes then, as well. That was expensive, the DNF we had then. We need to find more performance, because they simply are just quicker than us at the moment. Yes, we’re being sharp on race strategy and his race craft; we can keep ourselves in the mix. On outright pace they have a very dominant car at the moment, and we need to try and close that gap.

“I’m sure they’re managing different parts of the race, but we have a pretty good indication of what they’re doing. They obviously have a very good car and we were probably within 0.3 or 0.4 of a second of them (at Silverstone) as an average. It’s now our challenge to reduce that gap further, especially at venues like this.”

British Grand Prix, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Formula 1