Pirelli: No complaints on F1 tyre consistency

Pirelli Motorsport director Paul Hembery has told Spanish newspaper El Confidencial that rumours suggesting the company is supplying tyres of inconsistent quality to Formula One teams have not led to any official complaints being made. Hembery was responding to a suggestion that there are “serious differences” between tyres of the same compound made by Red Bull’s Dr Helmut Marko. Grands Prix have been surprisingly open to competition in the 2012 season, with seven different winners in eight races, and while Hembery takes credit for the tyres adding to the excitement of the racing, it is also clear that some of the top teams’ feathers have been ruffled by the more competitive championship.

One conspiracy theory circulating the paddock was that Pirelli may be mixing up the tyre quality deliberately to prevent the same drivers and teams prevailing; Hembery told the newspaper that the randomised distribution of the tyres, over which it has no control, made such a proposition unfeasible.

To the suggestion that the quality of tyres was inconsistent, Hembery said that the “possibility is very low” due to Pirelli’s quality controls. “Each tyre can be traced to the day it was manufactured, the process, the ingredients. In terms of consistency, we have the most advanced quality control systems in the world.” In addition, he said that no formal complaint has yet been issued, despite the opportunity given to each driver after every Grand Prix in the form of a report returned to the tyre supplier: “We cannot solve problems no one has raised,” he said.

“I have not received any comments from any team, or anything indicating a problem with the consistency of the tyres. In fact, we’ve had compliments. That is all I can say, unless someone shows us something we can look into.”