F1 tyre crisis raises driver boycott possibility

London: Formula One is in crisis with one of its most experienced competitors, Felipe Massa, discussing the possibility of a drivers’ boycott after Sunday’s British Grand Prix was dominated by exploding rubber, with five drivers — including Britain’s Lewis Hamilton — experiencing serious tyre problems.

Safety procedures are the very essence of modern F1 and, at the end of a chaotic race, Charlie Whiting, the FIA’s race director and safety delegate, admitted he had been close to pulling the plug on the race and letting down 110,00 fans as well as millions of television viewers.

Whiting said: “It was quite close. It did occur to me that we might need to do that. We have not seen a failure like this before. Clearing up all that debris was putting marshals at risk, and that is not very satisfactory.”

Jean Todt, the FIA president who attended the race, has demanded that the tyre supplier Pirelli participate in the sporting working group meeting on Wednesday to take the necessary measures to deal with the safety problem. The meeting was scheduled before Sunday’s race.

Todt said: “Our priority is the safety of the drivers. This is why we have asked for an immediate proposal after the analysis.”

With just six days before the next race, in Germany, there is little time for Pirelli to get their rubber right.

A drivers’ strike is unlikely but feelings will be running high when they have their traditional meeting on Friday evening.

Massa was seriously injured in Hungary in 2009 when he was hit on the head by a loose suspension spring. He was rushed to hospital for surgery after which his condition was described as “life-threatening but stable”.

On Sunday, when asked about a possible boycott, he said: “Well, for sure we are going to discuss about that. I am 100 per cent sure that every driver is complaining about today.

“Not just drivers who had the problems. I don’t want to say that [we will boycott] now because I don’t want to create loads of problems but this is something that, for our safety, we can do.

“I think what’s happened today is unacceptable because we are talking about safety. What happened today was very dangerous for us.

“This is not the first race it has happened at. I already had two [tyre failures] in Bahrain. Many others have had problems before. It was not just this track, with this debris. They need to do something for our safety.

“We were lucky that all the places it happened the driver was able to carry on and not to crash. For sure there are places here where, if it had happened, maybe it can be much more dangerous.”

Not for the first time this season, tyres were the major talking point after the race, but this time we were not talking about colour codes and softs, mediums and hards. Five drivers suffered dangerous tyre failure, when their rubber appeared to explode, starting with Hamilton on lap eight, and followed by Massa (10), Jean-Eric Vergne (15), Sergio Perez (47) and Esteban Gutierrez (49).

In the case of Hamilton, the accident denied him the chance to repeat his famous victory in the rain here in 2008. He had stormed away from his pole position and even extended his lead over Sebastian Vettel. He was struck down as he entered the Wellington straight — he could scarcely have been further away from the pits. He did magnificently to finish fourth. All but Gutierrez (front left) had trouble with their rear left, raising speculation that the kerbs on this most punishing of tracks could be to blame.

Hamilton, who saw his Mercedes teammate, Nico Rosberg, win the race ahead of Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso, said: “That’s the first time in my whole career that I’ve felt the danger. You are just trying to drive and do your best to look after the tyres. But I don’t think this is about looking after tyres. It’s a much bigger problem. The car becomes very loose and out of control — you have to fight to keep it in a straight line.

“I’m sure Pirelli and the FIA will react to today’s incidents. I’d be surprised if they don’t. It needs to be done straight away.

“I don’t think it would have been a problem [to win the race]. I had a lot of damage on my car at the end, on the floor and was losing a huge amount of downforce, so it’s surprising that we still had that kind of pace. I have no doubts that we would have had a one-two today.”

Hamilton’s former McLaren teammate Jenson Button said: “If we keep these tyres, yes, we will have a safety issue. We were lucky that nothing worse happened. The reason why we have not got different tyres yet is because not all the teams have signed them off yet.

“But I think that when it comes down to safety, it should just be done. I know that’s not in the regulations but it should be done.

“Finally, hopefully, everyone realises we have a bigger problem than we thought. Five tyre explosions, whether it is from debris or a tyre failure, I don’t care. The result is still the same and the danger is the same.

“It is dangerous for the driver and for the people behind, whether it is debris hitting the car or the tyre belt hitting the driver.”

The Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery said: “We are taking the situation very seriously. There might be some aspect to this circuit that impacts specifically on the latest version of our 2013 specification tyres.”