Bob Fernley thinks Pirelli tyre changes are not good for Force India – Formula 1 News
Force India deputy team principal, Bob Fernley has said that the tyre changes made by Pirelli after the 2013 British Grand Prix have affected their on track performance quite badly.
The Silverstone based squad have performed immensely well in the season so far. They are presently standing at 5th place in the constructors’ championship with 59 points. Moreover, they are ahead of their main rival,
McLaren and behind Lotus. Both their drivers, Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil, have performed convincingly well and have managed to score good points until now.
However, Di Resta and Sutil failed to score even a single point in the German Grand Prix. Fernley believes that they struggled at Nurburgring because of the new Pirelli rear tyres which the Italian company changed after the occurrence
of the unpleasant incidents in the British GP to ensure the safety of the drivers in the sport.
Pirelli have planned to introduce new tyres in the Hungarian GP, but Fernley has asserted that they are not feeling confident for the approaching race as he is not expecting the situation to get better. Besides, he said that they
will have to change the design of their car in order to manage the new tyres well which is quite difficult at this stage.
“I don't think we are confident, it's quite a significant change,” Fernley said. “Obviously what we've got to look at is running it [during the Young Driver Test] at Silverstone; the good positive thing is we can do a good back-to-back
comparison from only a week ago.”
“But the tyre is so significantly different, and the car is designed specifically around that 2013 tyre, that we will have to re-engage design work on something that we actually thought we'd stopped because we want to move on to
the 2014 car. So it's not good. It's not healthy for Force India,” he added.
Presently, the teams are looking forward to participate in the Young Driver Test which is to be held at Silverstone circuit next week to test the new Pirelli tyres. Let’s see whether Force India will be able to resolve their tyre
management issue ahead of the Hungarian GP or not.
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