Double F1 tyre blowout riddle not solved yet

At the time of writing there had been no further news from Pirelli regarding the failure of two of the company’s hard compound tyres at the F1 Azerbaijan street circuit.

Fortunately neither of the high-speed crashes resulted in any injuries to the drivers, but they certainly influenced the outcome of the race and put a large dent in both teams’ restricted annual budgets, while raising some interesting comments.

FIA Race Director Michael Masi was reported as saying that restarting the race with just two laps remaining was in the best interests of the sport. Quoting the regulations regarding red flags and restarts, the Australian was asked why the race was not stopped after Lance Stroll’s crash. He is reported as saying. “Obviously in the middle of the race, there was more than enough time and space, on the right-hand side of the track where we were recovering the car, and confidence with the way that it could be cleaned up in that fashion.”

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It’s the “confidence in cleaning up’ bit that intrigues me. With cars passing and creating all sorts of aero disturbance you cannot expect the marshals, armed with brooms, to guarantee a debris free track. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I cannot recall any other incident on that section of track, so is it possible that Max Verstappen’s tyre was damaged by debris from Stroll’s crash?

The severity of the Aston Martin crash certainly scattered shards of carbon fibre over an area greater than the brooms could cover, so when cars regained F1 race speeds such debris would be blown over an even greater area. Stroll’s crash was on the left side of the track, Verstappen’s on the right, which makes one think.

A statement attributed to Pierre Gasly of Alpha Tauri was interesting. Asked if he was surprised at the restart with just two laps remaining, his reply was. “The Americans took over, so I wasn’t really surprised that we go first with the entertainment.”

A greater surprise were comments from Ross Brawn, F1 MD of Motorsport, in his column on the official F1 website after Baku. Brawn wrote. “I was encouraged to hear a number of commentators say we needed another 10 laps of the action we saw in the final two laps of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix because it acts as a good prequel to sprint qualifying.”

He continued. “Sprint qualifying will be a little longer, around 17 to 20 laps, but it could well feature the same type of thrilling racing as drivers won’t have to worry about saving tyres.”

Now, if it only takes “a number of commentators” enthusing to encourage Brawn into seeing it as a prequel to the latest F1 entertainment gimmick, I am deeply concerned as to what future the master planners envisage in the search for greater global audience, or should that be global income.

This weekend is the first of three races back-to-back. Sunday is the French GP at the Paul Ricard, circuit followed by the Styrian GP and Austrian GP at the Red Bull Ring.

The see the official F1 Driver’s standings, click here.