Vettel takes on Hembery in tyre fitting challenge

Sebastian Vettel, the first winner of the Formula One Drivers’ Championship in the Pirelli era, took on Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery in a tyre fitting challenge at the Buddh International Circuit in India yesterday afternoon. The German driver had never fitted a tyre before, though that did not prevent him from beating Hembery’s time by 31 seconds. Despite help from the Pirelli crew, both men took more than twice as long as the experts in assembling the wheel from scratch. The event, filmed by television crews around the world, is another example of Pirelli’s ongoing mission to put tyres in the limelight during its period as F1’s supplier.

Vettel and Hembery mounted the tyre on the rim, inflating it to the right pressure and balancing it to the correct weight. The physical demands of fitting an F1 tyre are matched by the level of precision required, making the task a challenge for the unaccustomed. Each tyre has to be levered onto the rim by hand after the edge is coated in glue, while the tyre pressure and balancing weight has to be exactly right.
 
Pirelli brings a team of around 20 experienced tyre fitters to each event, and it takes them approximately two and a half minutes to fit one tyre. With the help of a Pirelli instructor each, Vettel and Hembery successfully completed the challenge; the former in 5:13, the latter in 5:44. Afterwards, Vettel met Pirelli’s team of fitters and spent some time talking to them about their jobs.
 
“We’re getting used to seeing Sebastian winning everything!” said Hembery. “It was tough actually: I’ve not fitted a tyre for about 15 years and Sebastian had never done it at all. Well done to him: you can see that he’s got a real competitive spirit and exact attention to detail in absolutely everything he does. I don’t think that either of us got the pressure or the balancing exactly right: Sebastian still had 65 PSI in his tyre but I didn’t want to try and ruin his winning streak… The main thing is that it was a lot of fun and it made us appreciate once again the essential contribution of all our fitters to the sport.”
 
Vettel added: “It was good fun and interesting to have the duel against Paul. Last time I did something similar was in karting. When the Pirelli boys explained it to us it looked much easier than it actually was. Paul and I were pretty close time-wise and then towards the end my tyre decided to jump a bit earlier onto the rim, so I was controlling the lead until the chequered flag.”
 
Pirelli will fit nearly 1,800 tyres during this race weekend at the Indian Grand Prix – the manufacturer says the two P Zero Orange rain tyres mounted by Vettel and Hembery will not be finding their way onto any of the cars. As a souvenir of the occasion, both Vettel and Hembery were presented with prizes: Vettel received a 50 per cent scale Pirelli wind tunnel tyre, while Hembery was given a carbon fibre component of the 2010 title-winning Red Bull Racing car.

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