Sebastian Vettel has broken his silence after the Belgian GP by underlining that he backed Ferrari’s one-stop strategy at Spa.
Vettel only spoke briefly to TV camera crews after the race, and not to print media, before dashing to the local airport – supposedly to beat an incoming storm. However, his TV comments revealed just how angry he was.
He has now reiterated that Ferrari didn’t take a risk by running a one-stopper and a long final stint.
In a statement in German on his website he said: “Just to make it clear, the team and I jointly decided on this strategy. I stand behind the team and the team is behind me. That makes us a team. The strategy was at no time risky. The team is not to blame.”
Adam Cooper's F1 Blog 
Didn’t Pirelli tell the teams the harder compound was estimated to be good for 40 laps at spa? Failing at 70% of that estimate, with no drop in performance or tire temp to indicate end of life tells me there was an issue with the tire, not the strategy. Pirelli has an engineer working with Ferrari, did he object with the planned strategy?
Indeed. Add in Permane’s comments and Merc considered 3 stopping and it doesn’t quite add up to for Pirelli, and let’s face it, its far from an isolated incident.
one swallow doesn’t make a summer.
Pirelli has the 3 others tyres with the same mileage… I hope somebody had the idea to check them… Pretty easy to find if they are worn out… or not.
Is this a silly idea?
Why is no one accepting of the possibility of damage to the tire due to excessive kerb hopping? Why the mad rush to judgement that the tire was defective?? Because Nico had a similar problem withe a right rear tire???
That only emphasizes the possibility of damage from excessive loading combined with damage from rough encounters with kerbs.
They both had a problem with the same right rear. That could be just coincidence of course, or maybe there is a link ???
I would be wary of automatically equating the two cases given that the failure mechanism does not appear to have been common across both cars.
In the case of Rosberg, Pirelli shared all of the information that they were able to acquire from back analysis of his tyre failure with the other teams. The information that those teams received appear to have backed up Pirelli’s assertion that the failure was due to external factors, since there were clear signs that the tyre wall had failed due to abrasion rather than from any structural failure, and therefore the teams were happy to accept Pirelli’s explanation in that instance.
Let’s not forget that Ferrari in general is a bit easier on the tires then some other teams, meaning that they can run a bit longer while setting competitive times. Big question is what the Pirelli engineer in the Ferrari pits has advised. And if he spotted a problem on the tires during the race or not.
Ferrari had a Pirelli technician with them monitoring the tires during the race. He did not ring any alarms about Vettel’s tires. The tires were not excessively worn as this would cause them to drop off in performance and make it virtually impossible to get adequate heat into them. There was no reason to bring Vetlel in for tires, and I cannot see why the kurbs would be an issue because the other drivers use them as much. For sure, Vetlel had a bit of the red mist going on right after the race, so his comments are understandable. Further, if the tire had blown elsewhere on the track it could have led to an off, a shunt or an incident with another car.
Everyone seems to discount the fact the tire could have been damaged without losing air pressure until it catastrophically blew. Decreasing air pressure or lack of performance would not necessarily be a predictor of damage incurred failure.
I would still maintain that the amount of attention that is given to tires from the time they’re mounted to the time they’re taken off the rim, and all of the data that is gathered in that time makes mysterious damage which leads to a catastrophic failure rather unlikely. If there had been conditions that might lead to that, such as driving over shards of broken carbon fiber or brief contact with another car, but we don’t seem to have those possibilities here.
Pirelli is going to announce their “findings” on Seb’s tire failure this weekend. Other then parsing through Ferrari’s track data, what else could they possibly review to form any conclusions?
Should make for interesting reading.
Yes it will!