Pirelli has responded to Sebastian Vettel’s tyre failure at Spa by saying that it asked two years ago for a limit on the number of laps a driver could run on each type of tyre.
In a statement Pirelli says that its request “was not listened to.” The statement would appear to be an aggressive response to criticisms from Vettel and others today. Pirelli boss Paul Hembery has already made it clear that it believes that the German’s failure was due to wear, and that Ferrari pushed the limits in terms of mileage.
The statement said: “In November 2013, Pirelli requested that there should be rules to govern the maximum number of laps that can be driven on the same set of tyres, among other parameters to do with correct tyre usage. This request was not accepted.
“The proposal put forward a maximum distance equivalent to 50% of the grand prix distance for the prime tyre and 30% for the option. These conditions, if applied today at Spa, would have limited the maximum number of laps on the medium compound to 22.”
Pirelli made no other comment on today’s race. It remains to be seen how the FIA reacts to the statement which would appear to be aimed at the governing body and the teams, who between them set the agenda for the F1 rules.
Adam Cooper's F1 Blog 
Did it escape their notice that such a rule would have introduced a second mandatory pit stop?
Absolutely ridiculous and they should leave F1 if this is what they propose
I asked for a raise in 2013 and didn’t get it. What does this have to do with 2015 ?
All teams and drivers realize the risks involved with extended laps on a given set of tires. In short, tire failure. Laying the fault of Vettel’s tire failure at Pirelli’s garage door is uncalled for. Due to Ferrari’s uncompetitive package they opted for a risky one stop strategy that didn’t work. End of story.
There is more to the story. Firstly Pirelli’s defense with “if we had what we wanted back in 2013 this wouldn’t be happening” is super lame because prescribed mileage limits are ridiculous. Clearly it should be up to the team to risk running tires for longer versus pitting for fresh rubber.
But there is the second part. The tires this weekend blew up very surprisingly. Yes Vettel had put very high mileage on a tough track, but nothing about previous laps indicated the the tires was degraded to the point of blowing. he never had a dramatic drop off in lap times just a progress slow down … making it impossible to predict when the tire would fail. So the team wasn’t able to judge the risk of running such a long stint. For this Pirelli fails.
Seriously, how was Ferrari supposed to know that stint would cause the tire to blow? When was the last time something like that happened??? Pretty sure that’s where the Pirelli hate comes from.
Alan Permane of Lotus told Auto Motor und sport that Lotus went in to the race with one stop as plan B, and that it was only plan B because it was a slower strategy not because they had any concerns about the tyres.
So that is two teams who thought that a one stop strategy was perfectly viable.