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Pirelli pushing for 2012 tyre regulation tweaks

Pirelli has found that teams are not using one set of the harder tyres at every grand prix weekend © Sutton Images

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Pirelli is pushing for a change in the Formula One tyre regulations to decrease the amount of unused tyres left after each grand prix weekend.

Pirelli currently supplies six sets of harder compound tyres and five sets of softer tyres to each driver at each race as well as an allocation of wet-weather tyres. However, it has found that at least one set of the harder tyres per driver is not being used over the grand prix weekend and it has been destroying perfectly good tyres after each round as a result.

Pirelli has therefore proposed that it should supply five sets of both dry-compound tyres to each driver at each race in order to come in line with the teams' usage.

Motorsport director Paul Hembery said he can prove to any doubters that the teams will not miss the extra set.

"At the moment if they want to keep the same regulations we're going to go to the FIA and say: There's no point in having six [hard] and five [soft], we might as well have five [hard] and five [soft] and we save money," Hembery is quoted by online magazine GP Week. "If they don't want to change the sporting regulations, then we can give them the stats that it's 100% certain they're not going to use them. Let's change the regulation and it saves us money. At the moment it's costing us money for no benefit to us or to the teams. It's completely nonsensical to carry around tyres when you're never going to use them."

Hembery is prepared for the teams to reject his proposition but insists it makes the most sense.

"You won't get instant unanimous approval of such a change," he added. "I think we do have to look at it and teams at the moment have said they don't want to change anything. We would like to go back to them and say, at the moment we have too many tyres, it's pointless us bringing tyres you're not going to use. We know we need to find a universally accepted solution because it's just a waste. It's pointless. Not everybody's against. I think it's one of these things that often they don't appreciate. It's easier sometimes not to make a change."

Hembery has also proposed a qualifying tyre to the teams, which would offer optimum grip over one lap on Saturday but then degrade very quickly. However, that suggestion has also been a hard sell with the teams.

"If you make a suggestion clearly different teams have a different perspective depending on where you are in the running order in terms of performance," Hembery said. "At the moment every race from the start, we have got sets of tyres that are unused and we would like to find a way that would allow the teams to use them during the race weekend. That's the point. That's where we started thinking about maybe a qualifying tyre. The fans like it but at the moment the teams aren't convinced by that, which is fine. We are here to come up with ideas and it is up to other people to decide if they want to adopt them."

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