Mario Isola says Pirelli has not received any requests from any Formula 1 team in 2019 to switch back to their 2018 tyre specification despite worries about the current domination from Mercedes AMG Motorsport.
Mercedes has taken all seven of the available race victories so far with reigning Drivers’ champion Lewis Hamilton taking five of them to comfortably lead team-mate Valtteri Bottas in the standings by twenty-nine points, and following their most recent victory at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, concerns are being raised that the 2019 configuration of tyre is perhaps too suited to the W10 chassis.
Pirelli, whose 2019 tyres are 0.4mm thinner than in 2018 in an effort to reduce excessive overheating and blistering, are only able to change the specification of tyre if there are genuine safety concerns, and they would require at least 70% of the current field – seven teams – to change them.
However, despite this, not one request has been made by any of the teams, and Isola, Pirelli’s Head of F1, says it is unlikely that even if there were requests, the fact there has not been any concerns over safety means that they can be sure the current specification of tyre will continue throughout the remainder of 2019.
“It is very clear how you can modify the construction or the compounds during the season,” said Isola to Motorsport.com. “I didn’t receive any request so far.
“If I receive a request that is reasoned, we will consider that request. We will consider what we have to do to modify the tyres, and we will discuss that with the FIA. We, Pirelli, can modify the construction or the compound, the specification of the tyre, only for safety.
“At the moment there is no safety concern. Even if I sent a request to the FIA, to be honest I don’t know what to write in that request because I cannot reason any change for safety. I cannot. There is no safety concern.”
