Max Verstappen was left fuming with F1 tyre supplier Pirelli after the race in Baku on Sunday. This comes after he lost his sure-shot victory to a late and unfortunate puncture.
It was not just Verstappen who faced this issue. He and Lance Stroll both suffered punctures on the main straight and crashed into the wall at high speeds.
While both were alarming crashes, more sympathy goes out to the Dutchman who had just four laps remaining.
After the race, Verstappen expressed that he was ‘pissed off’ and is expecting Pirelli to blame the incident on debris.
There will be talks with Pirelli
“I didn’t feel anything up until the moment that I suddenly went to the right, the tyre just blew off the rim and it’s not a nice impact to have, it’s quite a dangerous place to have a tyre blowout at that speed,” he said.
“For sure (there will be talks with Pirelli) but we know the result from that conversation already and that’s a bit hard to accept.
“It will be related to debris, it’s like that. I’m sure there will be talks, Pirelli isn’t happy with what happened here today, but it doesn’t change anything to the race and the result I got here.
“Sometimes this sport is very harsh when things like this happen, it’s sh*t,” he concluded.
Pirelli boss supports Max’s debris theory
Pirelli boss Mario Isola confirmed Verstappen’s prediction and blamed debris to be the cause of the incident.
“I believe I can exclude that failures were due to tyre wear, because it’s not a matter of tyre wear…. The rear-left tyre is not the most stressed tyre in Baku because… it’s obviously the rear-right,” he said.
“I don’t want to give any preliminary conclusions. But it seems that it is a cut due to debris, because as I said, it’s not the most stressed tyre.
“We had other cars with the same number of laps (on the) same tyres without any issue. So the preliminary investigation is that it is probably due to an external factor, or debris, or kerb or whatever.”
He added: “Another element was there was no sign, or any warning according to the teams.”
Verstappen’s crash due to Stroll’s debris
He even gave the theory that Verstappen’s crash could have been due to debris from Stroll’s crash earlier in the race.
“For Lance, honestly I don’t know because there were no incidents before his crash, so I cannot exclude that there was a part of something on track,” Isola added.
A deep cut was observed even on Lewis Hamilton‘s car although that did not suffer a puncture.
A need for multiple suppliers
Hamilton had issued caution after qualifying that it is getting difficult for tyres to stop overheating. He also suggested that the sport needed to have multiple suppliers.
“Pirelli is guilty of a fundamental problem. These cars are getting heavier. When we had several tire manufacturers in Formula 1 at the time, the racing cars were considerably lighter. But the companies spurred each other on,” he said.
“Today this incentive is missing because we have a sole supplier. It’s only us drivers who put pressure today,” he concluded.
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