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Ferrari and Red Bull call for full test instead of Young Driver Test

Ferrari were among the teams that suffered a tyre blow out © Getty Images

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• Drivers:
• Stefano Domenicali
• |
• Christian Horner

• Teams:
• Ferrari
• |
• Red Bull

Red Bull and Ferrari have proposed turning the upcoming Young Driver Test at Silverstone into a full blown tyre test with race drivers in order to help Pirelli find a solution to the issues it experienced at the British Grand Prix.

Pirelli suffered five blow outs over the weekend, resulting in several teams and the FIA asking the Italian manufacturer to come up with a solution for next weekend's German Grand Prix. Both Ferrari and Red Bull want to go a step further and hand the Young Driver Test, set to take place after Germany at Silverstone, over to race drivers in order to get the best feedback possible on the tyres.

"It's something we have to work together as F1 to find a position," Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said. "I had an idea that we need to discuss over the next days that we have a test here in Silverstone with the young drivers that, with Silverstone being a track that is very demanding with the tyres in terms of stress, should be ready to do something to try to solve this issue and I would also say we should do it with the racing drivers. It is something that is very important so I can guarantee to you that from a team point of view we are very open to find a solution. We will all benefit from a solution."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner added: "There happens to be a test here in three weeks and at the moment it's scheduled to be with young drivers, but maybe it should be with current drivers or test drivers that can give some decent feedback that Pirelli can use to test the rubber on a track that they've had some issues at."

Red Bull has long been against the current tyres due to the high-levels of degradation experienced earlier this season, but now thinks a change should be made for safety reasons.

"Are they dangerous? Arguably today, yes they are," Horner said. "It's Pirelli's product, it's their technology and they need to understand it and address it quickly. First of all they need to understand what happened and they need to react to that. Whether they can or not, I don't know. The most logical thing would be to go back to the tyres that worked for them previously. The tyres we had last year didn't have these failures. Whatever's changed has changed and you would have thought the most logical thing would be to go back to the tyres that had previously served them well."

He insisted his point of view was not motivated by performance but instead by safety.

"The problem is that teams are perceived to always be chasing a competitive advantage, but from our perspective, we were leading the race today and we've won races on these tyres, but I would urge to change purely on the grounds of safety because what happened today I'm sure Pirelli won't be very happy about," he added. "Safety comes above any performance criteria. High-speed delaminations and blowouts with the size of debris that's flying around, we've seen Felipe Massa's accident a few years ago with flying debris and that is almost dangerous if not more than the delaminations themselves."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.