Pirelli Motorsport’s Head of Car Racing Mario Isola insists there will be an investigation into the reasons why both Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel suffered tyre failures in the closing laps of the British Grand Prix on Sunday.
Raikkonen was the first to have a failure, with the tread on the front left tyre appearing to come apart, which lost him second place to Valtteri Bottas, but Vettel’s problem on the penultimate lap appeared to be a total failure of the same tyre, which saw him drop from third to seventh.
A spokesman at Silverstone said the two issues appeared to be caused by different problems, and Isola has confirmed that Pirelli will work with Scuderia Ferrari to find out the causes of the issues.
“The British Grand Prix contained a sting in the tail for the two Ferrari drivers, with Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen both unfortunately experiencing a tyre issue close to the hard-fought finish; that’s a real pity and we’ll obviously now look into exactly why this happened together with the team,” said Isola.
Isola felt the race was run at an amazing pace, with Lewis Hamilton’s fastest lap almost five seconds faster than Nico Rosberg’s best from twelve months ago, with his best lap being set on the Soft tyre rather than the supposedly faster Supersoft tyre.
“The race was run at an incredible pace this year, with the fastest lap being nearly five seconds faster than the 2016 equivalent,” said Isola.
