Pirelli mulls over future testing issues

A testing crisis may be looming at Pirelli. The Italian tyre maker’s motorsport director Paul Hembery shared with Autosport that he foresees future issues with the Toyota TF109 Pirelli currently uses for Formula One tyre tests. “We cannot get access to current cars, and nobody wants to seem to give us an answer or a solution,” Hembery commented. “As much as Toyota has done a good job, you can only go forward so far before we have no access to testing. We want to be a good partner for the sport and we want to try and deliver the best product, but until we can test and verify our own results it is becoming a little bit more difficult."

Regulation changes mean the Toyota will no longer represent the state of the art in Formula One. “The car doesn’t have the right sized fuel tank, and it doesn’t have the DRS. The 2013 regulations are probably going to be less downforce and higher top speed, so we need to sit down and find a solution,” Hembery explained.

“We genuinely need a solution and one that doesn’t lead to accusations that we are favouring one team over another. We are not interested in that,” the motorsport director added. “We just want to do our job to the best of our ability and we don’t want to favour anyone between ourselves and the teams. We want to find a professional solution and we have to say, with the collaboration we have had so far, we will find a solution.”