• British Grand Prix

FIA calls meeting over tyre blow outs

ESPN Staff
June 30, 2013 « Hamilton philosophical over lost victory | Furious Raikkonen laments strategy error »
Jean-Eric Vergne was on of five drivers to suffer a tyre blow out at Silverstone © Sutton Images
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The FIA has called on Pirelli to find a solution to its tyre blow outs before a meeting of the Formula One's Sporting Working Group on Wednesday in order to avoid a repeat of the problems seen at the British Grand Prix weekend.

Pirelli experienced five worrying tyre blow outs at the high-speed Silverstone circuit this weekend, four of which happened during Sunday's race. FIA president Jean Todt attended the British Grand Prix and has asked Pirelli to come up with a solution by Wednesday in order to solve the issue ahead of next weekend's German Grand Prix.

Pirelli is investigating the issue and plans to determine the cause before the teams arrive at the Nurburgring. It believes the problem is new and insists it is not related to the new bonding process brought to the tyres this weekend to prevent delaminations.

Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery said: "There have obviously been some issues with rear-left tyre failures which we have not seen before. We are taking the situation very seriously and we are currently investigating all tyres to determine the cause as soon as possible, ahead of the next Grand Prix in Germany. At the moment, we can't really say much more until we have fully investigated and analysed all of these incidents, which is our top priority.

"However, we can exclude that the new bonding process, which we introduced at this race, is at cause for the tyre failures we have seen today. There might be some aspect to this circuit that impacts specifically on the latest version of our 2013 specification tyres but at this point we do not want to speculate but will now put together all the evidence to find out what happened and then take appropriate next steps should these be required."

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