Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery has hit back at claims that the Italian supplier is producing inconsistent tyres which vary in quality at each race.
The claims were made by Red Bull’s Dr Helmut Marko. Not one to shy away from controversial subjects, the Austrian suggested the tyres varied in quality from team to team and race to race.
Hembery though has moved to quell such speculation, confirming how tyres are allocated to teams and how stringent their quality checks are,
“We don’t decide how they’re distributed [to each team], it’s a process that is done randomly,” he told El Confidencial.
When asked what the possibility was of having just a single tyre of lower quality than the rest, he replied: “The possibility is very low due to our quality controls. Each tyre can be traced to the day it was manufactured, the process, the ingredients.
“In terms of consistency, we have the most advanced quality control systems in the world,” he added.
Had such concerns been raised officially, which according to Hembery they haven’t, then Pirelli would look into the matter.
“I have not received any comments from any team, or anything indicating a problem with the consistency of the tyres.
“In fact, we’ve had compliments. That is all I can say, unless someone shows us something we can look into.
“Human error can occur, of course, but we have very elaborative systems of control, not only X-ray but others that I can’t even talk about because they’re top secret.
“All I can say is that the quality is exemplary. In fact, we have had no tyre failures at all, which we are told is something new in Formula One.”
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