Following an investigation into the cause of the tyre problems that marred the Qatar Grand Prix, Pirelli has released their conclusions.
Pirelli has released his conclusions following an investigation into why four drivers at the Qatar Grand Prix experienced front-left tyre failures.
Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas was denied a chance to battle for the podium after a front-left tyre failure during the race at the Losail International Circuit. Following that, both Williams drivers Nicholas Latifi and George Russell, as well as McLaren’s Lando Norris, experienced failures.
Bottas (after 35 circuits on Mediums), Russell and Latifi (both after 31 laps on Hards), and Norris (after only 23 laps on the Hard compound) all had troubles early in their second stints.
Thankfully, none of the failures resulted in the drivers losing control, and Pirelli declared that they would extensively investigate the causes back at their Milan factory.
On Friday in Saudi Arabia, Pirelli announced that they have reached some initial conclusions that exclude “any production defects”.
“Based on the findings obtained so far, the origin of the problem is mainly due to the amount of time these tyres were run on the kerbs, at high speed and with considerable lateral and vertical loads,” read the statement from Pirelli.
“[This is] a situation unique to the Losail circuit. The heavy demand caused by running over these kerbs, which isn’t possible to measure from the data available before the race, damaged the tyre construction and led to a loss of pressure in the internal sidewall, which consequently caused the structure to collapse after several seconds.”
Pirelli stated that the FIA and all of the teams have received technical details from their investigations.
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