Former F1 champion Damon Hill admits new pit stop CHALLENGE can add extra excitement

Damon Hill

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Former F1 champion admits new pit stop CHALLENGE can add extra excitement

The British ex-F1 driver is in favour of a controversial tyre compound rule change

Tyler Foster

Tuesday 15 August 2023 11:27

Formula 1 world champion Damon Hill has backed the idea that drivers and teams should be forced to use all three tyre compounds within races.

Under the current regulations, drivers must use at least two of the different tyre compounds in any race that isn’t impacted by rain.

Yet Hill believes that forcing teams to use the soft, medium and hard compound tyre within a race would an extra challenge and possibly create more drama.

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Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, Hill said: “There’s definitely an argument to say that if you’re going to look for excitement and a little bit more of a challenge, then why not?

"I think that’s a good idea, I have heard it put [forward] before. It would increase the number of pit stops, so you’d get less of the one-stop factor.

“You're throwing yourself open to the accusation of making unnecessary drama, just gimmicks, but I just think why not a third [compound].”

Hill: Gimmick pit stops not a problem

Damon Hill won the world championship in 1996 with Williams

Since the fastest lap point was welcomed back to F1 at the start of 2019, it has become a staple event of most races with teams sometimes taking risks to score the extra point.

And Hill has supported the concept that a three-tyre compound ruling could become similarly accepted.

He said: “It’s quite interesting where you’ve got to the stage now where Max has built a gap – and in the last race we had in Belgium where Lewis built a gap [big] enough to be able to come in for a new set of tyres and do the fastest lap and get one point – that that's a bit of drama that at first was thought to be a bit of a gimmick.

“But actually, now teams are deciding that's really important to have that scalp and so they come in and do the one lap stop. But there's a bit of drama at the end of the race and so having to use all three compounds would throw it another challenge in there. So yeah, I think it's possibly a good thing.”