The Tire Working Group has been busy assessing the new tarmac in Brazil and after careful consideration, and a lot of bitching from Felipe Massa, they have decided to relax a tad and bring softer tires. It’s the power of Massa…these aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Pirelli said:
After a meeting of the Tyre Working Group, the tyre nomination for the Brazilian Grand Prix (November 6-9) has been changed, following Pirelli’s proposal and with the unanimous agreement of all the teams.
Although the hard and medium nomination has been used in Brazil for the last two years, the recent resurfacing of the Interlagos track has prompted the change to medium and soft. This new choice is the same nomination as the United States Grand Prix the weekend before.
Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery said:
“We’ve always said that we would be open to any changes if they were required. After further technical analysis of the impact of the revised circuit surface, together with a risk assessment suggesting a low probability of compound overheating due to extreme track temperatures, we have made this change with the unanimous agreement of all 11 teams.”
It was nice of Pirelli to take the high road when, of course, their press statement could easily have been: “okay Felipe…we changed them. Shut up already”. Truth be told, if it is a newer surface and more Russian-like, then a softer tire might be the right call.
If it turns out not to be and they experience very high degradation, I wonder if they’ll blame it on Felipe? Massa was very critical of the conservative choice of Hard and Medium and suggested that this tire combination could potentially be dangerous.
