Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery believes the criticism levelled at the official tyre supplier is “unjustified” and is often thrown around for self-gain.
The Italian company was praised for its efforts during the first two seasons since its return to the sport. However a push to make the tyres more unpredictable – at the request of Formula 1 – has seen that praise turn to criticism after numerous tyre failures and races with three-four stops became the norm.
Taking the British Grand Prix out of the equation – which was an anomaly caused by a recipe of tyre mistreatment – Hembery believes they haven’t been treated fairly.
“I think for a large part of the season – and let’s take out Silverstone from that – then we feel it’s been very unjustified a lot of the comment and it’s made a lot of people unhappy,” Hembery told ESPN F1.
Some senior members of certain teams have used the tyre situation for their own gain, often criticising tyres and demanding a change when they do badly, but remaining silent when they win.
Hembery says this ‘self-interest’ is harmful to Pirelli and the sport as it will discourage other suppliers from entering the sport.
“People have wanted to use our name and sully our name for their own personal gain and that’s unacceptable. But anybody seems to be able to say anything today in Formula One, there’s no check and balance, people aren’t looking at the bigger picture and there’s too much self-interest.
“That’s something that people really need to have a good hard look at because there might be a lot of people looking at the way that we’ve been treated and thinking ‘We don’t want a bit of that, imagine us in that situation’. So you have to be careful, we’re a big company and as I say we want to stay in Formula One, we’re trying everything we can to do the best job we can but we’ll be around.
“In other forms we’ve been involved in motorsport for 110 years – that’s longer than any of the Formula One teams – and we’ll be in motorsport probably for another 100 years when they’ve all gone, so we’ll carry on.”
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