According to Motorsport Italy, Pirelli would be ready to carry out a test during a race weekend (Austrian GP?) in order to try tires with a stiffer carcass after the requests of the drivers in the Paul Ricard briefing.
Now that the dust has settled on the tire controversy, after a French GP that introduced the new FIA checks, Formula 1 looks forward to a short-term future.
The splendid Paul Ricard race gave important answers because Red Bull, suspected together with Aston Martin of practicing “games” with tire pressures and more, won with Max Verstappen also at Le Castellet where the subsequent checks with the tires put back to sample in the thermo-blankets in order to check whether they complied with the pressure prescribed by Pirelli. The Milton Keynes team has shown once more that it is the RB16B, Adrian Newey’s car, the extra weapon that the strong Dutch driver is able to exploit to perfection, triggering the temperature to warm up the tires and to maintain them in the right window of operation without manifesting that graining that hit, instead, Mercedes and sent Ferrari to the back of the grid in France.
Beyond the instrumental controversies, the “tire case” has taught us some things that should not be overlooked at all: the single-seaters are rapidly recovering the lost aerodynamic load with the cuts to the floor, to the vertical bulkheads of the floor and to the fins of the rear brake ducts, so the introduction at the beginning of the year of Pirelli tires with a slightly stiffer construction may not prove to be enough, when the two failures occurred in Baku with a difference of 1 PSI below the limit prescribed by the Milanese manufacturer. Pirelli, meanwhile, has collected important information in the development of the 18-inch tyres that will enter the scene next year and has thought of reinforced constructions that could be immediately transferred to this year’s tires.
It seems there already are some prototype tyres built before the events in Baku and if you do not want to go in the direction of the increase in inflation pressures which is detrimental to the performance and driveability of the single-seaters which are more slippery and less reactive in load transfers, it would be worth trying them out during a free practice session. According to the information collected by Motorsport.com, the drivers, in the Paul Ricard briefing with Mario Isola, would have asked the Italian manufacturer if it was possible to have different tires: tires with an even more rigid carcass than the current one have already been developed, which is able to withstand the most extreme stresses.
The intention is to carry out a collective resolution test in a free practice session before the summer break, perhaps at the Austrian GP next week, to then debut the new construction as soon as there is an ok and there will be the necessary construction times. There is talk of a first outing at the Belgian GP in Spa-Francorchamps. The idea is worth looking into, because in the last year of the 13-inch tires Pirelli assumes additional costs to ensure that the drivers’ requests are met, but we can already imagine the inevitable discussions that will accompany this decision: the new tires will be introduced only if they guarantee performances equal to the current ones, but it will be understood whether they will modify those technical values consolidated up to now and give an advantage to one team rather than another.
Every time tires are changed it is inevitable that there will be cars that adapt sooner and better to the necessary set-up changes and this could become a new reason for friction between Red Bull and Mercedes who fight with very small margins for the world championship. Toto Wolff, who was seen on Sunday morning in Pirelli Hospitality visiting Mario Isola with Stefano Domenicali, F1 CEO, can hope that the W12 will benefit from the stiffer tires in an attempt to counter the technical superiority shown by the Red Bull RB16B. .
The change of tires must be approved by the unanimity of the teams.
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