Drivers speak out against 'dangerous' tyre blanket changes

Plans to change how tyre blankets are used in Formula 1 have come under fire from drivers, who fear that it could result in more accidents and crashes.

The current aim is to stop the use of tyre blankets altogether in 2024. Prior to that, the maximum temperature allowed for the blankets has been stepped down year-to-year from 100C originally to 70C this season.

Next year the top temperature will be 50C, and teams tried out this new setting in the recent Pirelli tyre tests in Austin and Mexico City. Drivers didn't like the experience and have been speaking out against the move.

• Read also: Pirelli prepping for blanket ban in F1 with all-new compounds

"It was not enjoyable," Red Bull driver Max Verstappen told the media at the Circuit of the Americas. "I drove on 50 degrees, I think it was, and I almost spun in the pit lane already.

"Of course I was on the hardest compound, but I think there's a lot more to it," he suggested. "I think we're going to have a lot of crashes. That I know already compared to what we have at the moment.

"Also your tyre degradation is going to be completely different because your tyres are very cold," he pointed out. "You're sliding around a lot in the first few laps.

"Your tyre pressures are going to go through the roof," he said. "I think it's going to take like half of the race before you have temperature on your tyres," he said.

"Austin is still a track where you can easily switch on the tyres because of the high-speed cornering, but if you go to like a track like a street circuit or Monaco...

“It’s a very expensive way of heating tyres up, driving around for three or four laps," commented Aston Martin performance director Tom McCullough.

Haas driver Kevin Magnussen also feared for the consequences of losing tyre blankets. "I would really not like it," he said. "I don't think Pirelli, the FIA, Formula 1 really understand how difficult it is to get heat into these tyres.

"It's because they haven't driven these cars, they don't understand," he complained. "So yeah, I think there is a safety concern. I think it would be dangerous."

Other categories don't use tyre blankets, but Magnussen said that F1 was different because of the current make-up of the compounds supplied by Pirelli.

"When cold it's super easy to warm up [in sportscars], it's not like that here," he explained. "Sportscars last year never had the tyre warmers, never had an issue. 50 degrees here – big issue. So no tyre warmers, very very big issue."

McLaren's Lando Norris had similar thoughts. "[Austin] was like the best possible conditions to have these tyres," he said. "Super-warm, hot track temp, high-speed first sector to get the temp in.

"And they were not nice - so easy to front lock, so easy to rear lock, completely unpredictable," he reported. "Imagine going to a much colder race track, or if it’s a little bit damp or something. Everyone's going to shunt the car at some point.

"We'll have discussions about it, between all the drivers and the GPDA [but] no driver wants it, basically."

Alfa Romeo's Valtteri Bottas agreed that "with the current tyres it would be impossible in some cases" but felt it "should be possible" for Pirelli to produce a tyre that could cope without tyre blankets.

Pirelli itself said it would review the data and the driver feedback from the recent tests and make a recommendation about the tyre blanket regulations in due course.

"We will evaluate the warm-up phase and we will show to the FIA, to the teams even, to everybody, the people that are involved, and we will take a decision for next year," said chief engineer Simone Berra.

“We listen to drivers,” motorsport director Mario Isola told The Race. “I don’t believe it’s dangerous, but in Austin - which is a high-energy circuit - we had some issues with the warm-up.

“After listening to the drivers, we started to consider that if Austin is a high-severity circuit with very good weather conditions and they had an issue with a warm-up, what happens at street circuits? Low-severity circuits with smooth tarmac? Or in poor conditions?

“That’s why we decided in Mexico to test the blankets [heated] at 70C for two hours instead of three hours," he said. “My feeling is that's the right direction to go for.

“We know we have to make quite a big step to get rid of blankets in 2024," he added. "It’s not just redesigning the construction completely, it’s also redesigning all the five compounds."

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