Ferrari leads FP2, air pressures under scrutiny

Kimi Raikkonen set the pace in Friday’s second free practice session. The first practice session was marked with two red flag session due to tire issues for Williams F1 driver Felipe Massa and Renault F1’s Kevin Magnussen.

It was determined that Magnussen’s issue was a broken suspension while Massa’s was ruled a setup error on Williams part. Regardless, it didn’t stop Haas F1’s Romain Grosjean from complaining about Pirelli’s tire pressure settings:

“The tyre pressure limit has been ridiculous, everything is up to the roof and the cars are undriveable,” said Grosjean.

“Out of the garage the front-tyre pressure is 23psi, which is absolutely ridiculous, with the rear 21 and a half.

“So imagine on track we are 26 at the front, hot, and 23 at the rear. It’s almost a road car. You just don’t get any feeling.

“With pressures that high you get locking brakes, understeer. It’s like there is oil on the track.

“You could see a lot of people locking the wheels for no reason. It’s the same for everyone, but it looks like we are suffering a bit more.

“It would be good if we could change a little because it doesn’t feel like a racing car.”

McLaren’s Jenson Button agreed with him:

“The minimum pressures we can run are massively high so the tyres overheat pretty much immediately,” he said.

“It’s a pretty big issue, especially on the longer runs. It’s just trying to find your best way of getting around that, which we’re not doing a very good job of.”

Asked about potential solutions, he replied: “I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it now.

“They’ve risen a lot over the last year. I think they were 19 or something last year, or 18, last year and they’ve gone up by 4psi, which is massive, that’s before you leave the pits, before they increase through the roof.

“It’s tricky and that’s probably why you see the cars floating around a lot more. They’re not stuck to the road and you can’t carry speed.”

Hat Tip: AUTOSPORT