The official tyre supplier to Formula 1, Pirelli, has slammed the sport for failing to agree a new contract beyond 2013.
Pirelli had hoped to have a new contract in place by April at the latest, to ensure it has enough time to re-design its tyres by the September deadline, but they’re yet to have an agreement in place.
“Apparently on September 1st, we are meant to tell them [the teams] everything that they need to know with the tyres for next season, but now we are in mid-May,” said Paul Hembery in Monaco on Thursday.
“You can imagine how ludicrous that is when we have not got contracts in place.
“Maybe we won’t be here…”
He said the matter was “extremely serious” given how much the sport will change in 2014 with the new regulations. Therefore they need enough time to re-engineer their tyres to meet the technical demands – something they will struggle to do if a decision isn’t made soon.
“Things are getting extremely serious because the changes next year are substantial,” he added.
“The sport has to take a rapid decision because aside from having the fixed resources in the business involved in F1, there is also a technical job. We need to do a technical job as well.
“It is not just a case of maybe putting a harder compound on to this year’s tyres – the changes are so dramatic that we will need to do a thorough re-engineering of the tyre. That takes time, so the longer is goes on it makes our job impossible.
“There comes a time where we will not have time to do the job any more.”
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