30/06/2013
NEWS STORY
While the FIA has promised a thorough investigation into the tyre problems that threatened the British Grand Prix, drivers are already talking of a possible boycott should the situation not be resolved to their satisfaction... and soon.
In the wake of today's race, a number of drivers were clearly angry, demanding that the situation be resolved as soon as possible.
Amongst these was Lewis Hamilton whose race, much to the dismay of the crowd, was wrecked when his left-rear tyre exploded on the eighth lap of the race whilst leading.
"That's the first time in my whole career that I've felt the danger," said the Mercedes driver who subsequently recovered to finish fourth. "You are just trying to drive and do your best to look after the tyres, but I don't think this is about looking after tyres, it's a much bigger problem. The car becomes very loose and out of control, you have to fight to keep it in a straight line.
"I am sure Pirelli and the FIA will react to today's incidents," he added. "I'd be surprised if they don't. But it needs to be done straight away. I had a lot of damage on my car at the end, on the floor and was losing a huge amount of downforce so it surprised me that we still had that kind of pace. I have no doubts that we would have had a one-two today."
"I think what's happened today is unacceptable, because we are talking about safety," said Felipe Massa who was injured when hit by a spring that fell from Rubens Barrichello's car in Hungary in 2009. "What happened today was very dangerous for us.
"This is not the first race it has happened. I already had two (failures) in Bahrain. Many others have had problems before. It was not just this track, with this debris. They need to do something for our safety.
"We were lucky that all the places it happened the driver was able to carry on and not to crash," he added. "For sure there are places here where if it had happened, maybe it can be much more dangerous."
Asked if he and his fellow drivers might consider a race boycott, he said: "Well, for sure we are going to discuss that. I am 100% sure that every driver is complaining about today.
"I don't want to say that now," he continued referring to the threat of a boycott, "because I don't want to create loads of problems but this is something that, for our safety, we can do."
"It was not dangerous this time because it happened on the straight," said Sergio Perez who suffered a failure in the final stages of the race when his car was running much lighter having used most of its fuel, "but it could have been really serious. We are risking our lives and if something like this happens again, we don’t want one of us to be killed.”
In a subsequent statement, FIA president Jean Todt revealed that Pirelli has been summoned to a meeting of the Sporting Working Group in Paris on Wednesday, in order that "it take the necessary measures to deal with this issue that poses a safety problem.
"Our priority is the safety of the drivers,” it added. "This is why we have asked for an immediate proposal after the analysis.”
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