Pirelli would "feel stupid" not to use new rear tyres at British Grand Prix

Pirelli

Pirelli would "feel stupid" not to use new rear tyres at British Grand Prix

Pirelli has tested a new construction in Austria after the Azerbaijan GP tyre failures

Ewan Gale

Friday 2 July 2021 19:53 Updated: 12:12

Pirelli motorsport boss Mario Isola believes it would be "stupid" not to introduce the rear tyres tested in Austrian Grand Prix practice for the rest of the season after receiving positive feedback from drivers and teams.

The Italian tyre manufacturer announced the test of prototype rear tyres as an additional response to the failures suffered by Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll in Azerbaijan with a view to the construction replacing the current specification from the British Grand Prix onward.

An initial reaction to the two incidents saw a lengthy technical directive implemented at the French Grand Prix dictating teams run higher tyre pressures

Asked if introducing new specifications after the failures brought worry that the move could be seen as Pirelli quietly admitting it was to blame for the problems, Isola said: "You know you can read it as you want.

"At the end of the day, it is always a delicate topic but I believe we explained very clearly what happened in Baku and the reason why the failure happened.

"We have been as transparent as we can but we explained everything and the new construction is just an additional margin that we want to take.

"To be honest, I would feel quite stupid if we had a new construction in the pocket that is available and is giving us an additional margin, without there being any difference in drivability, not to introduce it. It makes no sense."

Pirelli has "no objections" from teams

Each driver was given two sets of the prototype compound to use across the two practice sessions at the Red Bull Ring with the only stipulation provided being that the tyres must be run across 12 timed laps.

Isola revealed that some teams are yet to run the tyre after an agreement that final practice could also be used as a test having seen the potential for a wet second session, but believes there will be nothing to stop the tyres from being introduced.

"The feedback I collected is that the prototype is behaving in a similar way to the C4 compound baseline, so the medium they have for the race. The feedback from the drivers was positive," he added.

"Somebody found a bit more traction in the first laps, somebody commented that the new prototype was very similar to the current C4.

"I didn't have any objections, I didn't have any negative comments, I didn't collect anything that has taken me to think there is no good reason not to introduce the prototype at Silverstone.

"We are going to receive the data [Friday] night. We want to take a bit of time to analyse the data, to finalise collecting the feedback tomorrow morning but to be honest, I don't see the reason why we shouldn't introduce it at Silverstone. Final confirmation tomorrow."