Team Lotus Mike Gascoyne appreciates Pirelli for risks taken this year
Mike Gascoyne, the technical director of Team Lotus, has recently stated that Pirelli, the lone tyre suppliers of the Formula 1, deserve a heads up as they have delivered a very good package for the 2011 Formula 1 season keeping in mind that this is their
debut year in the sport and they took many risks as a result.
“We have had 20 different changes over the last 20 years and apart from DRS they all had absolutely no effect on the racing at all. We change the tyre supplier and suddenly we have fantastic racing”, Gascoyne told the media.
The FIA (International Automobile Federation) asked the new tyre suppliers to create tyre compounds that degrade faster than last year’s Bridgestone tyres in order to increase the exhilaration level of the sport and reintroduce the hype of each team’s respective
pit strategy before each race.
The races are becoming more exciting as a result and most of the critics claim that the reintroduction of some new devices including KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) and DRS (Drag Reduction System) are not as significant as the new tyres in terms of
pace.
“We will have occasions now where a driver in the lead will lose the race because of their tyres and the last thing any tyre manufacturer in F1 wants is for a driver to get out of the car and say the tyres were useless and that is why they lost the race”,
Gascoyne added.
Other than that, he stated that Pirelli has been very brave during the development process of the sport’s new tyres and they are eager to improve even more in the near future.
Team Lotus, on the other hand, is pretty much where it was last year as they are still finishing ahead of Hispania Racing Team (HRT) and Virgin Racing Team, at the tail end of the grid. They are still the “best of the worst” right now and it seems that up
until now, they have been unable to become an active mid-running team of the sport keeping in mind they were expected to be one this season.
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