Pirelli has confirmed it is willing to continue as Formula 1’s official tyre supplier on a sole or competitive basis, as long as certain conditions are met.
The Italian manufacturer has been F1’s sole supplier since it returned to the sport in 2011 and has agreed to supply high-wearing tyres in a bid to boost the spectacle.
However Pirelli chairman and chief executive Marco Tronchetti Provera says the company is flexible in what it can provide going forward when its contract expires at the end of 2016.
“We intend to stay if the regulations are the ones we agree upon, if the costs are affordable, and the guarantee we want to have in the contracts is accepted,” he said in Monaco.
“In terms of competition I am neutral,” he said. “But we are ready to accept it [a tyre war]; we are also ready to be sole supplier. We will let the FIA make the decision.
“As for less management of the tyres in races, we are ready to do that. It’s not an issue,” he added.
“The easiest thing is to make a tyre that last 10 races, a season. Technologically speaking that’s the easiest solution.
“What is difficult is to do as we do today, providing different tyres that last safely for 10, 15, 30 laps. That is a good challenge.”
However Tronchetti Provera is adamant that certain conditions must be met, such as warmer testing and no free compound choice – a rule which is set to be introduced next year.
“More testing would be better for all of us, for the teams, and with warmer testing in somewhere like Bahrain or Abu Dhabi.
“If we wait until February it’s too late and the temperatures are not the right ones. It’s in the interests of Formula 1 and all the teams to do that.”
In response to the free compound rule, he said: “That absolutely must not happen. We have to provide a guarantee of the products. The responsibility to choose has to remain in our hands because we don’t want our tyres to be used improperly.
“We can find a way to provide safe tyres, giving also some flexibility. But the basic choice of the tyres has to be made by us.”
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