28/06/2019
NEWS STORY
The ten team bosses, together with a number of drivers, met with the FIA and Pirelli ahead of this morning's opening session as a number of teams sought to have the Italian manufacturer revert to the 2018-spec thicker treaded tyres.
The move follows the failure of a number of teams to get their tyres into the correct operating window, which in turn has caused them to blame almost all their misfortune this year on the tyres.
One team that has got the tyres to work correctly is Mercedes, and understandably the German team was against the move back to the 2018-spec tyres which would have required the support of seven teams.
Representing the drivers were Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Charles Leclerc, Romain Grosjean and Alex Wurz, chairman of the Grand Prix Drivers Association (GPDA), while Nikolas Tombazis represented the FIA, and Ross Brawn represented Formula One Management.
Understandably, Mercedes was against the move, as was McLaren, which has also made a better job of working with the 2019 tyres. Mercedes customers, Racing Point and Williams, both sided with the German team as did Renault, meaning the vote went 5-5.
Despite the result of the vote the mood was understood to be positive, as the teams called for a less narrow operating window and less degradation, whilst also arguing that those teams with less downforce should not be further handicapped by the failure to get their tyres working.
It's understood that even if the vote had gone in favour of the switch, the 2018-spec tyres wouldn't have appeared until Mexico.
Check out our Friday gallery from Spielberg, here.