McLaren hoping Pirelli will not be conservative with 2013 F1 tyre selection – Formula 1 news
Sam Michael, who is the sporting director for McLaren, has expressed his hope that Pirelli’s 2013 F1 tyre selection will not be too conservative and that it does not hurt the excitement of the races.
“Teams do have a better understanding of it, and drivers understand how to drive them better,” Michael told AUTOSPORT when asked if 2013 will be more predictable. “But it depends what they do with the compounds. The race was better when it was like that
[more unpredictable]. It wasn't unfair, it was down to who could understand and manage. That's what we do with everything. It's like saying someone's come up with a better diffuser. I actually didn't have any problem with what was happening with the tyres.
I thought it was good. I hope we don't go too conservative.”
Michael told that a few one stop races were very exciting even though it was not so because of the tyres but other reasons. He said that three consecutive races were expected to be boring but they turned out to be good. He said that he is hoping that they
can carry on this trend of exciting races.
The tyres introduced by Pirelli at the beginning of the 2012 F1 season had the teams struggling to adjust with them. For the first seven races, there was no consistency in the performance from the drivers and seven different drivers won those races.
Pirelli is again bringing new tyres for the upcoming season which will be different in terms of both compounds and construction. Motorsport director for Pirelli tyres, Paul Hembery, has said that the new tyres are going to change the aerodynamics of the
F1 cars and there is going to be more deflection; especially in the rear tyres. However, Hembery added that the teams should not be expecting any big surprises.
The teams were already given a preview of the new tyres when Pirelli decided to provide them with the prototypes during the Friday practice session ahead of the season ending Brazilian Grand Prix. Hembery said they did this to help the teams collect information
on the tyres and then work around it during the winter break.
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