Hembery defends Pirelli amid tyre criticisms

The Italian marque’s motor racing boss Paul Hembery has defended Pirelli amid criticism of its 2011 formula one tyres.

It has been reported that the hard/soft compound combination for the initial four races of the season was selected because of serious problems with the medium and super-soft tyres.

Indeed, the super-softs powered fast lap times at the initial tests of the 2011 pre-season but degraded almost completely after a single tour.

When asked about the criticisms from within the sport about the Pirelli tyres, Hembery answered: “Well, someone will be winning, and will not be heard complaining even once.

“The others will complain because that’s where they would like to be.

“We have already seen in the testing that some are able to get more out of the tyres than others.  But that is part of the game.”

Asked specifically about the severe degradation, he told German language spox.com: “They all wanted it that way because they were bored with one-stop races all the time.

“The teams and Bernie Ecclestone wanted there to be two stop races again, with us producing the tyres for that,” he added.

“That’s what we’ve done, and now the teams are faced with the challenge of making the most of it, especially in terms of strategy,” said Hembery.

It was pointed out to him that Bridgestone, F1’s previous official supplier, was able to produce tyres that did not have the same degradation issues.

“Sure, but that was the intention,” answered Hembery.

“It would be the easiest thing in the world for us to build a tyre that keeps going and going for the whole weekend.”

© RIF | GMM