Categories: 2016 SeasonF1 News, Reports and Race Results

Teams set for free tyre choice from 2016

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The FIA has announced teams are set to be allowed to choose their own tyre compounds for each race from 2016.

Following a proposal from Force India, yesterday's meeting of the Strategy Group saw a number of topics discussed aimed at "improving the show". The FIA has subsequently announced that the Strategy Group voted in favour of one change for 2016:

"Free choice of the two dry tyre compounds (out of four) that each team can use during the race weekend".

Pirelli's Paul Hembery has previously said such a move would lead to some teams taking too many safety risks with they compound choices.

“There is a good reason why we make choices and it is based on a lot of data – surfaces, temperature ranges you can encounter during a weekend," Hembery told F1i last week. “Barcelona is a good example because over the last few years we’ve had races here with 18 degrees track temperature, and now we have 50, so you have to make sure you are covered for the worst condition.

“So if you start opening up choices there will be two things that will happen; the top teams will centralise around the same choices because they use the same ideas and data we would be using.

“Then there would be some people that would want to risk a little more, and then there would be some people who would want to be a little reckless.

“That means they would be taking a product into a situation that would create a safety problem, and if there is a safety problem then we cannot accept that risk, so it is impossible. That is even before we get into the logistical problems and extreme cost it would involve to do such a thing."

The Strategy Group's proposal will need to be approved by the F1 Commission.

Click here for Wednesday's gallery from testing at the Circuit de Catalunya

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.