Ross Brawn expects that the FIA and FOTA teams will come to an agreement which will allow some testing of the new tyres before the end of the current season.
There are some concerns surrounding the lateness of a decision regarding supply for the 2011 season. A deal is expected to be announced sometime next week, with Pirelli the likely winner. However, teams have already begun designing their 2011 cars without the knowledge of how the new tyres will behave.
Brawn is adamant a test is vital, but with recent cost cutting measures, especially within the newer teams, he understands not all teams have testing resources.
“There has got to be some testing with the new tyre supplier, whoever it is, so I think late summer and early winter there will be some tests organised with the new tyre supplier,” Brawn said.
“But again, we must try and accommodate that within the teams we have. We can’t afford to go out and start rebuilding test teams again.”
The Mercedes team principal explained that the teams have provided a specification of what they want, which should limit the variances between the current Bridgestone tyre and the new supply.
“The teams have together produced a technical specification of the tyre we want,” he confirmed. “So there is a document that we have all contributed to which is a broad spec of the sort of tyre that we want which means there is a single directive to the new tyre supplier of the type of tyre that is needed.
“That means we can continue with the development of our cars. Our cars are being designed around the current tyres because we have no other information.
“So I think everybody wants a tyre to come in that has similar construction characteristics to the current tyre, whether the compounds are quite the same is another matter.”
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