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Lotus angry at conservative Pirelli

Lotus has been notoriously easy on its tyres over the past two seasons © Getty Images

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Lotus trackside operations director Alan Permane has criticised Pirelli for being "too conservative" with its tyre compounds for the next three races.

Pirelli will supply the medium and hard compound tyres - the hardest selection available - for both the British and Hungarian grands prix. That's despite the soft tyre being paired with the hard at Silverstone last year, and the medium and soft compounds at the Hungaroring.

Although Pirelli's tyre compounds are softer across the range this year, Permane says Pirelli's choice for Hungary especially is wrong.

"It's unusual to take the same tyres to Hungary as to Bahrain and Silverstone," Permane told the BBC. "We didn't have those tyres last year. We had medium and soft last year and people did two stops. So it absolutely doesn't make sense - they're too hard for that track."

Permane added that Pirelli appeared to be going against its own stated aims by being so conservative, saying it still impacts on the championship in one way or another.

"They went softer to try to encourage more pit stops. There's no point in them going softer with the tyres if they're just going to take different harder tyres everywhere. This is exactly what they did in the last few races of last year. They brought harder and harder tyres and we just ended up doing one stop.

"And last year they said they didn't want to interfere in the championship so they took conservative tyres, but I never really understood what that meant."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.