No more tyre ‘tweaks’ in 2013 – Pirelli

Pirelli will make no more changes to their tyres this season, other than those which they will introduce during practice for the Canadian Grand Prix ahead of a race debut in Britain a few weeks later.

The Italian supplier has come under fire from fans who believe four stops in Spain was too much, prompting the company to announce tweaks to all its compounds.

These were however blocked by the FIA as the regulations state that all 11 teams must agree to the changes – which they didn’t.

Pirelli will therefore only make minor changes to reduce the number of delaminations, not the number of stops, and that will be the final change in 2013 confirmed Paul Hembery.

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“Ideally we’d like to change the harder compound to give us more guarantees of being under three stops,” he admitted, “but you have to understand that sort of change needs the agreement of all 11 teams.

“It’s not something we can do, and there are reasons for that. Teams have taken different design approaches, so some feel they don’t wish to be penalised by an in-season change that may alter their performance levels.”

Instead, Pirelli will switch its steel band for a kevlar one – similar to that used in the 2011-12 tyres, aimed at reducing the delaminations, but not the degradation level.

He confirmed Mercedes never ran the final specification tyres during their 1,000km test – which is the subject of a protest – and Canada would be the first time any team got to use them.

“Even that tyre [the one used by Mercedes] had a different compound to what we are going to be using this year. On Friday it will be the first time, in the full specification, any team has tested them.”