Ross Brawn says tyre swapping ban hindered Mercedes’ performance at Nurburgring – Formula 1 News
Mercedes team principal, Ross Brawn has said that the tyre swapping ban by Pirelli hindered their performance in the 2013 German Grand Prix because of which they could not secure competitive results as compared to their rivals.
Lewis Hamilton of the Brackley based team, along with several other drivers, faced tyre explosion issue in the British GP after which Pirelli decided to come up with stronger rear tyres for the German GP in order to ensure the
safety of everyone in the sport.
Hamilton delivered an amazing performance in the qualifying at Nurburgring and successfully claimed the pole position for the race. However, he struggled with the tyre degradation issue in the race and could only secure 5th
place finish. In contrast, his teammate, Nico Rosberg came 9th after taking a start from 11 grid slot.
Brawn said that they faced high tyre degradation issue in the preceding race which hampered their performance and they failed to attain good points despite a strong showing by Hamilton in the qualifying.
“The construction of the tyre has changed and I think the ability to swap tyres before was a good way of offsetting stress of tyre,” Brawn was quoted by Autosport. “You could use it in qualifying and then swap it, and have it in
a different condition for the race.”
“You cannot do it with these tyres, and I think we were back into going over the limit of the temperature of the tyres and suffering from it. The first half of race was pretty horrible. In second half, fuel weight went down, it
got a touch cooler and we got back in the window again,” he added.
In addition, he said that they are positively looking forward to perform well in the Hungarian GP in which the Italian tyre company will come up with the 2012 tyre compound.
At present, the Silver Arrows are standing at second place in the constructors’ championship with 183 points. Furthermore, they are three points ahead of their major rival, Ferrari and behind the defending champions, Red Bull Racing.
It will be exciting to see how they perform in the season ahead.
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