Reacting to today's incident at Spa, Pirelli claims it officially requested a limit on tyre use.

A brief statement issued late on Sunday evening, reads:

"Regarding what happened today at the Belgian Grand Prix, Pirelli underlines that: In November 2013, Pirelli requested that there should be rules to govern the maximum number of laps that can be driven on the same set of tyres, among other parameters to do with correct tyre usage. This request was not accepted.

"The proposal put forward a maximum distance equivalent to 50% of the grand prix distance for the prime tyre and 30% for the option. These conditions, if applied today at Spa, would have limited the maximum number of laps on the medium compound to 22."

The statement follows a scathing attack from Sebastian Vettel who described his failure on the penultimate lap of the race, which Pirelli attributes to team strategy, as "unacceptable", the German casting doubt on the Italian manufacturer's explanation for Nico Rosberg's failure on Friday.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by AlbertoDietz, 25/08/2015 16:26

"Seb is 100% right. Moreover, I'm not only sick and tired of idiotic restrictions but of the whole nickle-and-diming and PC nonsense imposed on F1 by vultures wholly alien to Grand Prix Motor Racing who are simply bleeding the sport dry. Pitchforks!!"

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2. Posted by Spindoctor, 25/08/2015 8:01

"Whilst Pirelli made the tyres, the overall specification seems to come from Bernie & (supposedly) FIA. They were asked to make tyres which degrade fairly rapidly in order to spice-up an otherwise increasingly dull on-track spectacle. There is also a lack of in-season testing, and the limited availability of tyres at race weekends.

The combination of these two factors means that teams are at the very least tempted to "push" the tyres' safety "envelope" in order to gain advantage. This temptation is much greater when the "best" car has around a second a lap raw performance advantage over the next best.

Owing to lack of testing, teams attempting to gain advantage by pushing the tyres' limits are taking something of a leap in the dark, and Pirelli has little more information than the teams, for the same reasons.

It's pretty likely that Pirelli, to avoid further "Reputational Damage" will publish fairly conservative guidelines to teams about how many laps to run their tyres and\or go more conservative with construction & compounds.

This outcome will pretty much neutralise the "spicing up" of the racing via differing pit-stop strategies, as teams won't want to risk having failures should they ignore Pirelli's recommendations.

"

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3. Posted by TheBucketOfTruth, 24/08/2015 23:26

"The Pirelli tires have always been a joke. The sport has not benefitted from their introduction in 2011 whatsoever. Can we get a tire war going again?"

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4. Posted by Yeyox02, 24/08/2015 22:37

"I would wait for the next race weekend in Italy and see what happens. If the problem occurs again Pirelli should answer some questions."

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5. Posted by fredfrog, 24/08/2015 11:19

"Time for some competition. Michelin should be allowed to supply to teams that wish to run their brand, 18 inch or otherwise ... is there a rule that says a manufacturer has to run 13 inch wheels? Then we'll see who steps up to the plate.
There are simply too many vested interests in F1. "

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6. Posted by GrahamG, 24/08/2015 7:17

"Yet another "triumph" for Pirelli, not content with supplying rubbish tyres to F1 they potentially kill two drivers in one weekend (again) but of course it's "not their fault", why should anyone want to actually win a race!
How long do we have to put up with their destructive presence in the sport? "

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7. Posted by gturner38, 24/08/2015 0:23

"I'd be all for Pirelli being allowed to publish a recommended maximum distance for a set of tires, but the actual running should be up to the teams. When the only tire failure comes from the only team trying to stretch the distance, I don't think people find it too difficult to blame the team for pushing the rubber too far."

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